Not all the pride of beauty; Those eyes, that tell us what the sun is made of; Those lips, whose touch is to be bought with life; Those hills of driven snow, which seen are felt: All these possessed are nought, but as they are The proof, the substance of an inward passion, And the rich plunder of a taken heart.

The melancholy ghosts of dead renown, Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause.

Fame is the shade of immortality, And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught, Contemn'd; it shrinks to nothing in the grasp.

Polite diseases make some idiots vain, Which, if unfortunately well, they feign.

This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, The twilight of our day, the vestibule; Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death, Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar, This gross impediment of clay remove, And make us embryos of existence free.

Narcissus is the glory of his race: For who does nothing with a better grace?.

The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay, Provides a home from which to run away.