"With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind."

“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.”