To most of us the future seems unsure. But then it always has been; and we who have seen great changes must have great hopes.

And may we find when ended is the page, Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.

All I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by.

The Thames is a wretched river after the Mersey and the ships are not like Liverpool ships and the docks are barren of beauty ... it is a beastly hole after Liverpool; for Liverpool is the town of my heart and I would rather sail a mudflat there than command a clipper out of London

Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once in a minute something generous dies for want of it.

Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man; it has become the amusement and delight of the few.

In the dark room where I began My mother's life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, But through the death of some of her.