But ‘why then publish?’ There are no rewardsOf fame or profit when the world grows weary.I ask in turn why do you play at cards?Why drink? Why read? To make some hour less dreary.It occupies...

And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.

I awoke one morning to find myself famous.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,And their hearts but once heaved,...

Many are poets, but without the name;For what is Poesy but to createFrom overfeeling Good or Ill; and aimAt an external life beyond our fate,And be the new Prometheus of new men,Bestowing fire from Heaven,...

Wedded she some years, and to a manOf fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE’Twere better to have TWO of five and twenty…

I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch‐light ; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume…

I know that two and two make four – and should be glad to prove it too if I could – though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2...

If I could always read I should never feel the want of company.

Always laugh when you can, it is cheap medicine.

And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,In vain our fate in sighs deplore;Remembrance only can remain,But that, will make us weep the more.

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?The hearts bleed longest, and heals but to wear That which disfigures it.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture on the lonely shore,There is society, where none intrudes,By the deep sea, and music in its roar:I love not man the less, but Nature...

This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.

The light of love, the purity of grace,The mind, the Music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonised the whole —And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!

Let us have wine and woman, mirth and laughter,Sermons and soda water the day after.Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;The best of life is but intoxication:Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunkThe hopes...

A woman being never at a loss… the devil always sticks by them.

All who joy would winMust share it — Happiness was born a twin.

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that’s best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes…

The mellow autumn came, and with it cameThe promised party, to enjoy its sweets.The corn is cut, the manor full of game;The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beatsIn russet jacket;—lynx-like is his aim;Full grows his...

On with the dance! let joy be unconfin’d

The night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness I learned the language of another world.

Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep.

WHEN we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. The dew of the morning...

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after.

A timid mind is apt to mistake every scratch for a mortal wound.

But first on earth as vampire sentThy corpse shall from its tomb be rentThen gastly haunt thy native placeAnd suck the blood of all thy race

They never fail who die in a great cause.

I live not in myself, but I becomePortion of that around me: and to meHigh mountains are a feeling, but the humof human cities torture.

Time and Nemesis will do that which I would not, were it in my power remote or immediate. You will smile at this piece of prophecy – do so, but recollect it: it is justified...

I do not believe in any religion, I will have nothing to do with immortality. We are miserable enough in this life without speculating upon another.

In secret we met -In silence I grieve,That thy heart could forget,Thy spirit deceive.If I should meet theeAfter long years,How should I greet thee? -With silence and tears

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so feltIn solitude, where we are least alone.

We are all the fools of time and terror: DaysSteal on us and steal from us; yet we live,Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of...

Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps,Sweet to the father is his first-born’s birth,Sweet is revenge–especially to women

Tis to create, and in creating live A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now. What am I? Nothing:...

I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.

I am ashes where once I was fire…

The lapse of ages changes all things – time – language – the earth – the bounds of the sea – the stars of the sky, and everything ‘about, around, and underneath’ man, except man...

When people say, “I’ve told you fifty times,” / They mean to scold, and very often do; / When poets say, “I’ve written fifty rhymes,” / They make you dread that they ‘II recite them...

I love not man the less, but nature more

the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, the first to welcome, the foremost to defend.

The great object of life is sensation- to feel that we exist, even though in pain.

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the starsDid wander darkling in the eternal space.

But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.

for the nightHath been to me a more familiar faceThan that of man, and in her starry shadeOf dim and solitary lovelinessI learned the language of another world.

As soon seek roses in December, ice in June,Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaffBelieve a woman or an epitaphOr any other thing that’s falseBefore you trust in critics.

Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed there must be evil.

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.