168 quotes
O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind
Till it is hushed and smooth!
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Poems (1820)
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful — a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819)
I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. God bless you!
Letters (1817)
Mounted on panthers’ furs and lions’ manes,
From rear to van they scour about the plains.
Endymion (1818)
The moon put forth a little diamond peak
No bigger than an unobserved star,
Or tiny point of fairy cimetar.
Endymion (1818)
O 'tis a very sin
For one so weak to venture his poor verse
In such a place as this.
Endymion (1818)
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.
Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,
Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house.
He ne'er is crowned with immortality
Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.
Endymion (1818)
I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death.
Letters (1817)
She sighed for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year.
Poems (1820)
Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
Letters (1817)
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!
Poems (1820)
As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.
Poems (1820)
A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing.
Poems (1820)
My chest of books divide amongst my friends.
Last will and testament (1821)
I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.
Letters (1817)
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.
Poems (1820)
I have met with women whom I really think would like to be married to a poem and to be given away by a novel.