On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.

Existence is not itself a good thing, that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessaries: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily.

Could man be drunk for ever With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at morning And lief lie down of nights. But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.

The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.

Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under.

There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.