Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

Then black despair, The shadow of a starless night, was thrown Over the world in which I moved alone.

Among true and real friends, all is common; and were ignorance and envy and superstition banished from the world, all mankind would be friend.

Poetry Love's Philosophy The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean, The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one another's being mingle— Why not I with thine? See the mountains kiss high heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdain'd its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea— What are all these kissings worth, If thou kiss not me?

Hell is a city much like London A populous and smoky city

Strange thoughts beget strange deeds.

The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow.