“When weary with the long day’s care,And earthly change from pain to pain,And lost, and ready to despair,Thy kind voice calls me back againO my true friend, I am not loneWhile thou canst speak with such a tone!So hopeless is the world without,The world within I doubly prize;Thy world where guile and hate and doubtAnd cold suspicion never rise;Where thou and I and LibertyHave undisputed sovereignty.What matters it that all aroundDanger and grief and darkness lie,If but within our bosom’s boundWe hold a bright unsullied sky,Warm with ten thousand mingled raysOf suns that know no winter days?Reason indeed may oft complainFor Nature’s sad reality,And tell the suffering heart how vainIts cherished dreams must always be;And Truth may rudely trample downThe flowers of Fancy newly blown.But thou art ever there to bringThe hovering visions back and breatheNew glories o’er the blighted springAnd call a lovelier life from death,And whisper with a voice divineOf real worlds as bright as thine.I trust not to thy phantom bliss,Yet still in evening’s quiet hourWith never-failing thankfulness Iwelcome thee, benignant power,Sure solacer of human caresAnd brighter hope when hope despairs.”

“Where I am always thou art. Thy image lives within my heart.”

“A LITTLE while, a little while,The weary task is put away,And I can sing and I can smile,Alike, while I have holiday.Where wilt thou go, my harassed heart--What thought, what scene invites thee nowWhat spot, or near or far apart,Has rest for thee, my weary brow?There is a spot, 'mid barren hills,Where winter howls, and driving rain;But, if the dreary tempest chills,There is a light that warms again.The house is old, the trees are bare,Moonless above bends twilight's dome;But what on earth is half so dear--So longed for--as the hearth of home?The mute bird sitting on the stone,The dank moss dripping from the wall,The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown,I love them--how I love them all!Still, as I mused, the naked room,The alien firelight died away;And from the midst of cheerless gloom,I passed to bright, unclouded day.A little and a lone green laneThat opened on a common wide;A distant, dreamy, dim blue chainOf mountains circling every side.A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;And, deepening still the dream-like charm,Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.THAT was the scene, I knew it well;I knew the turfy pathway's sweep,That, winding o'er each billowy swell,Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.Could I have lingered but an hour,It well had paid a week of toil;But Truth has banished Fancy's power:Restraint and heavy task recoil.Even as I stood with raptured eye,Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,My hour of rest had fleeted by,And back came labour, bondage, care.”

“From lips indifferent of her death I heard, Indifferently I listened to it, too,'were echoing in my heart. O youth, youth! little dost thou care for anything; thou art master, as it were, of all the treasures of the universe—even sorrow gives thee pleasure, even grief thou canst turn to thy profit; thou art self-confident and insolent; thou sayest, 'I alone am living—look you!'—but thy days fly by all the while, and vanish without trace or reckoning; and everything in thee vanishes, like wax in the sun, like snow…. And, perhaps, the whole secret of thy charm lies, not in being able to do anything, but in being able to think thou wilt do anything; lies just in thy throwing to the winds, forces which thou couldst not make other use of; in each of us gravely regarding himself as a prodigal, gravely supposing that he is justified in saying, 'Oh, what might I not have done if I had not wasted my time!”

“O good Horatio, what a wounded name,Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!If thou didst ever hold me in thy heartAbsent thee from felicity awhile,And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,To tell my story. . .O, I die, Horatio;”

“And thou who thinkest to seek for me, know thy seeking and yearning shall avail thee not, unless thou know this mystery: that if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without thee”

“Thou may be sure that he who will tell thee of thy faults is thy friend, for he ventures thy dislike and doth hazard thy hatred.”