I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.

I seemed to be upon the verge of comprehension, without the power to comprehend as men, at time, find themselves upon the brink of rememberance, without being able, in the end, to remember.

Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance ... which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.

Thy soul shall find itself alone ’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone— Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness—for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee—and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still. [...]

And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but overacuteness of the senses?

As an individual, I myself feel impelled to fancy ... a limitless succession of Universes.... Each exists, apart and independently, in the bosom of its proper and particular God.

And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.