330 quotes
I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.
Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798)
Thou has left behind
Powers that will work for thee,—air, earth, and skies!
There 's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
Ocean is a mighty harmonist.
Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side,—a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
The bells of Ryleston seemed to say,
While she sat listening in the shade,
With vocal music, "God us ayde!"
And all the hills were glad to bear
Their part in this effectual prayer.
Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own."
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow;
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man,
Could field or grove, could any spot of earth,
Show to his eye an image of the pangs
Which it hath witnessed; render back an echo
Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!
The Excursion (1814)
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the one
That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.
And when the stream
Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
A consciousness remained that it had left,
Deposited upon the silent shore
Of memory, images and precious thoughts,
That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803)
The Eagle, he was lord above,
And Rob was lord below.
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803)
They came with banner, spear, and shield;
And it was proved in Bosworth field,
Not long the Avenger was withstood—
Earth help'd him with the cry of blood.
Truths that wake
To perish never.
Intimations of Immortality
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
… In shepherd's phrase
With one foot in the grave.
A quotation from a text or speech.