1. “Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, / Which men call earth.”
2. “A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars,—as stars to thee appear
Seen in the galaxy, that milky way
Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powder’d with stars.”
3. “Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part;/ Do thou but thine.”
4. “A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”
5. “A mind not to be chang’d by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
6. “And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.”
7. "And out of good still to find means of evil."
8. “As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.”
9. “A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beck’ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.”
10. “Better to reign in hell than serve in heav'n.”
11. “Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.”
12. ”Chaos umpire sits
And by decision more
embroils the fray
by which he reigns: next
him high arbiter
Chance governs all.”
13. “Dark with excessive bright.”
14. “Deep versed in books and shallow in himself.”
15. “Fairy elves, / Whose midnight revels, by a forest side / Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, / Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon / Sits arbitress.”
16. “For books are not absolutely dead things, but... do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand unless warriors be used, as good almost kill a Man a good Book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills Reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”
17. “For who would lose, / Though full of pain, this intellectual being, / Those thoughts that wander through eternity, / To perish rather, swallowed up and lost / In the wide womb of uncreated night, / Devoid of sense and motion?”
18. “Freely we serve / Because we freely love, as in our will / To love or not; in this we stand or fall.”
19. ”From Man or Angel the great Architect
Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge,
His secrets, to be scanned by them who ought
Rather admire. Or, if they list to try
Conjecture, he his fabric of the Heavens
Hath left to their disputes -- perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide
Hereafter, when they come to model Heaven
And calculate the stars: how they will wield
The mighty frame: how build, unbuild, contrive
To save appearances; how gird the Sphere
With Centric and Eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb.”
20. “From the cheerful ways of men / Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair / Presented with a universal blank / Of nature's works to me expunged and razed, / And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.”
21. “Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.”
22. “Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source / Of human offspring, sole propriety / In Paradise of all things common else.”
23. “Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee / Jest and youthful jollity, / Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles, / Nods, and becks, and wreathèd smiles.”
24. “He that has light within his own clear breast/ May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day, / But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts/ Benighted walks under the midday sun.”
25. “He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem.”
26. “Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing in their golden urns draw light,
And hence the morning planet gilds her horns.”
27. “I am a part of all that I have met.”
28. “Innumerable as the stars of night,
Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun
Impearls on every leaf and every flower.”
29. “Imparadis'd in one another's arms.”
30. “Implied / Subjection, but required with gentle sway / And by her yielded, by him best received; / Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, / And sweet reluctant amorous delay.”
31. “Into a Limbo large and broad, since called / The paradise of fools, to few unknown.”
32. “I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i’ th’ plighted clouds.”
33. ”Long is the way / and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.”
34. “Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.”
35. “Myself, and all th' Angelic Host, that stand
In the sight of God enthroned, our happy state
Hold, as you yours, while our obedience hold.
On other surety none: freely we serve,
Because we freely love...”
36. “Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st, / Live well, how long or short permit to heav'n.”
37. “Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompany’d; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleas’d. Now glow’d the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveil’d her peerless light,
And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.”
38. “. . . Or fairy elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth
Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.”
39. “Rhetoric . . . To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous and passionate.”
40. “Ring out ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time,
And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.”
41. “Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.”
42. “She what was honour knew,
And with obsequious majesty approv’d
My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower
I led her blushing like the morn; all heaven
And happy constellations on that hour
Shed their selectest influence; the earth
Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill;
Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs
Whisper’d it to the woods, and from their wings
Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub.”
43. “So dear I love him, that with him all deaths
I could endure, without him live no life.”
44. ”So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, / Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost; / Evil be thou my Good.”
45. “Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; / The world was all before them, where to choose / Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: / They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow / Through Eden took their solitary way.”
46. “Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o’er true virginity.”
47. “Such sober certainly of waking bliss.”
48. “Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.”
49. “That power / Which erring men call Chance.”
50. “The childhood shows the man, / As morning shows the day. Be famous then / By wisdom; as thy empire must extend, / So let extend thy mind o'er all the world.”
51. “The first and wisest of them all professed / To know this only, that he nothing knew.”
52. “The other shape, / If shape it might be called that shape had none.”
53. “The stars, / That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps / With everlasting oil, to give due light / To the misled and lonely traveller.”
54. “The sum of earthly bliss.”
55. “The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon,
When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.”
56. “Thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers.”
57. “Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature’s works, to me expung’d and raz’d,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.”
58. “Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold.”
59. “'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity;
She that has that is clad in complete steel,
And, like a quiver'd nymph with arrows keen,
May trace huge forests, and unharbour'd heaths,
Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds;
Where, through the sacred rays of chastity,
No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer,
Will dare to soil her virgin purity.”
60. "When the waves are round me breaking,
As I pace the deck alone,
And my eye in vain is seeking
Some green leaf to rest upon;
What would not I give to wander
Where my old companions dwell?
Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!"
61. “Where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand;
For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mast’ry.”
62. “Where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all.”
63. “Which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”
64. “With thee conversing I forget all time,
All seasons, and their change,—all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glist’ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful ev’ning mild; then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glist’ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful ev’ning mild, nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.”
65. ”Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason its self.”
66. “Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.”
