The highest exercise of imagination is not to devise what has no existence, but rather to perceive what really exists, though unseen by the outward eye-not creation, but insight.

The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark

Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.

White swan of cities slumbering in thy nest . . . White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of the palaces and strips of sky.

All sense of hearing and of sight enfold in the serene delight and quietude of sleep.

Under a spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands.

The soul never grows old.