To feel forever 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.

The poetry of earth is never dead When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide I cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.

Nothing ever becomes real till experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it

I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise.

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!"

My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite.