Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, 'I will compose poetry.' The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness...and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure.

All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.

A Christian, a Deist, a Turk, and a Jew, have equal rights: they are men and brethren.

The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow.

Joy, once lost, is pain

There is a harmony In autumn, and a luster in its sky...

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.