If I should die, I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.

We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us - and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject. - How beautiful are the retired flowers! how would they lose their beauty were they to throng into the highway crying out, "admire me I am a violet! dote upon me I am a primrose!"

That queen of secrecy, the violet.

To bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty

Stop and consider! life is but a day

I am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky! How beautiful thou art!

Some say the world is a vale of tears, I say it is a place of soul-making.