There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.

O magic sleep! O comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hush'd and smooth!

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time.

The genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man; it cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself. That which is creative must create itself.

It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel.

Or thou might'st better listen to the wind, Whose language is to thee a barren noise, Though it blows legend-laden through the trees.