Those forms we fancy shadows, those strange lights That flash on dank morasses, the quick wind That smites us by the roadside—are the Night's Innumerable children. Unconfined By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls, Uneasy spirits, steal into the air From festering graveyards when the curfew tolls At the day's death... And wheresoever murders have been done, In stately palaces or lonesome woods, Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods Some sad, invisible, accurséd Ghost!

A man is known by the company his mind keeps.

What probing deep Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?

They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.

What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.

Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.

But I, in the chilling twilight stand and wait At the portcullis, at thy castle gate, Longing to see the charmed door of dreams Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!