The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed.

Three silences there are: the first of speech, the second of desire, the third of thought.

Some critics are like chimney-sweepers; they put out the fire below, and frighten the swallows from their nests above; they scrape a long time in the chimney, cover themselves with soot, and bring nothing away but a bag of cinders, and then sing from the top of the house as if they had built it.

Mercy more becomes a magistrate than the vindictive wrath which men call justice.

In what a forge and what a heat were shaped the anchors of thy hope! Fear not each sudden sound and shock; 'Tis of the wave and not the rock.

In December ring Every day the chimes; Loud the gleemen sing In the streets their merry rhymes. Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire!

Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.