Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--- No---yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever---or else swoon in death.

He ne'er is crowned with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.

Every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer.

You cannot conceive how I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour.

Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.

In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity.

What shocks the virtuous philosopher, delights the chameleon poet.