For this is the most civil sort of lie That can be given to a man's face. I now Say what I think.

One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it.

Oh that simplicity and innocence its own unvalued work so seldom knows!

[L]ike thee to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough year just awake In its cradle on the brake. The brightest hour of unborn Spring, Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn To hoar February born.

Before man can be free, and equal, and truly wise, he must cast aside the chains of habit and superstition; he must strip sensuality of its pomp, and selfishness of its excuses, and contemplate actions and objects as they really are.

His fine wit Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it.

When you can discover where the fresh colors of the faded flower abide, or the music of the broken lyre, seek life among the dead. Such are the anxious and fearful contemplations of the common observer, though the popular religion often prevents him from confessing them even to himself.