Quotes

Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honeydew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry!

I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

A deed without a name.

Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call today his own; He who, secure within, can say, Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have liv’d today.

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come. 1

Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows, Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.

Hypocrite lecteur—mon semblable—mon frère [Hypocrite reader—my double—my brother]!

Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth.

Not heaven itself upon the past has power; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

In the hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column; In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.

The poet is like the prince of the clouds Who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer; Exiled on the ground in the midst of jeers, His giant wings prevent him from walking. 1

But yet I’ll make assurance double sure, And take a bond of fate.

Since heaven’s eternal year is thine.

The learning and blundering people will live on. They will be tricked and sold and again sold And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.

Perfumes, colors and sounds echo one another. 2

Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him. 50

O gracious God! how far have we Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace!

Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses. 3

Show his eyes, and grieve his heart; Come like shadows, so depart.

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

The people know the salt of the sea and the strength of the winds lashing the corners of the earth. The people take the earth as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope. Who else speaks for the Family of Man?

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, Richness, quietness and pleasure. 4

What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music’s power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.