"And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? -- now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage."

“And all my days are trances,And all my nightly dreamsAre where thy grey eye glances,And where thy footstep gleams — In what ethereal dances,By what eternal streams.”

“Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine — A green isle in the sea, love,A fountain and a shrine,All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,And all the flowers were mine.”

“Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!I feel ye now — I feel ye in your strength.”

“Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung! — An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young — A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.”

“If I could dwellWhere IsrafelHath dwelt, and he where I,He might not sing so wildly wellA mortal melody,While a bolder note than this might swellFrom my lyre within the sky.”

“Yes, Heaven is thine; but thisIs a world of sweets and sours;Our flowers are merely—flowers.”