“In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.”

“The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild;He has devoured the infant child.The infant child is not awareIt has been eaten by a bear.""Infant Innocence”

“When I examine my mind and try to discern clearly in the matter, I cannot satisfy myself that there are any such things as poetical ideas. No truth, it seems to me, is too precious, no observation too profound, and no sentiment too exalted to be expressed in prose. The utmost I could admit is that some ideas do, while others do not, lend themselves kindly to poetical expression; and that those receive from poetry an enhancement which glorifies and almost transfigures them, and which is not perceived to be a separate thing except by analysis.”

“Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?Oh they're taking him to prison for the color of his hair.”

“Into my heart an air that killsFrom yon far country blows:What are those blue remembered hills,What spires, what farms are those?That is the land of lost content,I see it shining plain,The happy highways where I wentAnd cannot come again.”

“To stand up straight and tread the turning mill,To lie flat and know nothing and be still,Are the two trades of man; and which is worseI know not, but I know that both are ill.”

“Here dead we lie Because we did not choose To live and shame the land From which we sprung.Life, to be sure, Is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, And we were young.”