Quotes

O infinite virtue! com’st thou smiling from The world’s great snare uncaught?

There died a myriad, And of the best, among them, For an old bitch gone in the teeth, For a botched civilization. Charm, smiling at the good mouth, Quick eyes gone under earth’s lid, For two gross of broken statues, For a few thousand battered books.

For each ecstatic instant We must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy.

Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.

The very life-blood of our enterprise.

The shirt of Nessus is upon me.

It gives no man a sinecure. And no one knows, at sight, a masterpiece. “And give up verse, my boy, There’s nothing in it.”

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

To fight aloud, is very brave— But gallanter, I know Who charge within the bosom The Cavalry of Woe—

Be wise with speed; A fool at forty is a fool indeed.

Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish; A vapor sometime like a bear or lion, A tower’d citadel, a pendant rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon ’t.

With Usura With usura hath no man a house of good stone each block cut smooth and well fitting.

These are the days when Birds come back— A very few—a Bird or two— To take a backward look. These are the days when skies resume The old—old sophistries of June— A blue and gold mistake.

One to destroy, is murder by the law; And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe; To murder thousands takes a specious name, War’s glorious art, and gives immortal fame.

To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast? to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?

Unarm, Eros; the long day’s task is done, And we must sleep.

No picture is made to endure nor to live with but it is made to sell and sell quickly with usura, sin against nature, is thy bread ever more of stale rags is thy bread dry as paper.

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

The thought beneath so slight a film— Is more distinctly seen— As laces just reveal the surge— Or Mists—the Apennine—

The man that makes a character makes foes.

But I will be A bridegroom in my death, and run into ’t As to a lover’s bed.

What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage Whose world, or mine or theirs or is it of none? First came the seen, then thus the palpable What thou lovest well is thy true heritage.

I taste a liquor never brewed, From Tankards scooped in Pearl—

In records that defy the tooth of time.

Baited like eagles having lately bath’d… As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer.

O sun! Burn the great sphere thou mov’st in; darkling stand The varying shore o’ the world.

The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, The green casque has outdone your elegance.

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

Inebriate of Air—am I— And Debauchee of Dew— Reeling—through endless summer days— From inns of Molten Blue—

Tired nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep!