There is a luxury in self-dispraise; And inward self-disparagement affords To meditative spleen a grateful feast.

Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.

O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in everything.

I'll teach my boy the sweetest things; I'll teach him how the owlet sings.

And the most difficult of tasks to keep Heights which the soul is competent to gain.

Huge and mighty forms that do not live like living men, moved slowly through the mind by day and were trouble to my dreams.

I've watched you now a full half-hour; Self-poised upon that yellow flower And, little Butterfly! Indeed I know not if you sleep or feed. How motionless! - not frozen seas More motionless! and then What joy awaits you, when the breeze Hath found you out among the trees, And calls you forth again!