I do but sing because I must; and pipe but as the linnets sing.

But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus

Some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Forgive! How many will say, forgive, and find a sort of absolution in the sound to hate a little longer!

And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

No rock so hard but that a little wave may beat admission in a thousand years.