“I doubt sometimes whether a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me - yet I sometimes long for it.”

“There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.”

“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.”

“In quiet we had learn'd to dwell-Myvery chains and I grew friends,So much a long communion tends-To make us what we are:-even IRegain'd my freedom with a sigh.”

“Some have accused me of a strange designAgainst the creed and morals of this land,And trace it in this poem every line:I don't pretend that I quite understandMy meaning when I would be very fine;But the fact is that I have nothing planned...”

“and what is writ, is writ,Would it were worthier! but I am not nowThat which I have been”

“T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels,By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an endTo strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,Particularly with a tiresome friend:Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;Dear is the helpless creature we defendAgainst the world; and dear the schoolboy spotWe ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,Is first and passionate Love—it stands alone,Like Adam's recollection of his fall;The Tree of Knowledge has been plucked—all 's known—And Life yields nothing further to recallWorthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,No doubt in fable, as the unforgivenFire which Prometheus filched for us from Heaven.”