“He thought about himself, and the whole Earth,Of Man the wonderful, and of the Stars,And how the deuce they ever could have birth;And then he thought of Earthquakes, and of Wars,How many miles the Moon might have in girth,Of Air-balloons, and of the many barsTo perfect Knowledge of the boundless Skies;And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes.”

“Oh could I feel as I have felt,-or be what I have been,Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene;As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me.”

“Shadow! or Spirit!Whatever thou art,Which still doth inheritThe whole or a partOf the form of thy birth,Of the mould of thy clay,Which returned to the earth,Re-appear to the day!”

“But suppose it past,—suppose one of these men, as I have seen them meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame ; suppose this man surrounded by those children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault than he can no longer so support; suppose this man—and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims,—dragged into court to be tried for this new offence, by this new law,—still there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him, and these are, in my opinion, twelve butchers for a jury, and a Jefferies for a judge!”

“Tis to create, and in creating live        A being more intense, that we endow        With form our fancy, gaining as we give        The life we image, even as I do now.        What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou,        Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth,        Invisible but gazing, as I glow        Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth.”

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,      Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;      ’T is strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a lasting link      Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces Frail man, when paper — even a rag like this, Survives himself, his tomb, and all that’s his.”

“My slumbers--if I slumber--are not sleep,But a continuance of enduring thought,Which then I can resist not: in my heartThere is a vigil, and these eyes but closeTo look within; and yet I live, and bearThe aspect and the form of breathing men.”