The surest poison is time.

The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.

If, at any time, it comes into my head, that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone.

Poetry being ... when we look from the center outward.

We are thus assisted by natural objects in the expression of particular meanings. But how great a language to convey such pepper-corn informations!

The simplest words,--we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire.

How often we must remember the art of the surgeon, which, in replacing the broken bone, contents itself with releasing the parts from false position; they fly into place by the action of the muscles. On this art of nature all our arts rely.