Letter writing is the only device combining solitude with good company.

Come what may, I have been blest.

Egeria! sweet creation of some heart Which found no mortal resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast.

Oh, Mirth and Innocence! Oh, Milk and Water! Ye happy mixture of more happy days!

My slumbers--if I slumber--are not sleep, But a continuance of enduring thought, Which then I can resist not: in my heart There is a vigil, and these eyes but close To look within; and yet I live, and bear The aspect and the form of breathing men.

Who tracks the steps of glory to the grave?

O thou beautiful And unimaginable ether! and Ye multiplying masses of increased And still increasing lights! what are ye? what Is this blue wilderness of interminable Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden? Is your course measur'd for ye? Or do ye Sweep on in your unbounded revelry Through an aerial universe of endless Expansion,--at which my soul aches to think,-- Intoxicated with eternity.