“Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet!—that one strives, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith All thy unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but water now.”

“Say over again, and yet once over again,That thou dost love me...-tollThe silver iterance!”

“Thou are my only reality-- all other people are but shadows to me: all events and actions, in which thou dost not mingle, are but dreams.”

“Stella, the only planet of my light,Light of my life, and life of my desire,Chief good, whereto my hope doth only aspire,World of my wealth, and heav'n of my delight:Why dost thou spend the treasure of thy sprite,With voice more fit to wed Amphion's lyre,Seeking to quench in me the noble fireFed by thy worth, and kindled by thy sight?And all in vain, for while thy breath most sweet,With choicest words, thy words with reasons rare,Thy reasons firmly set on Virtue's feet,Labor to kill in me this killing care:Oh, think I then, what paradise of joyIt is, so fair a Virtue to enjoy.”

“If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,By self-example mayst thou be denied.”

“For rigorous teachers seized my youth, And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire, Show'd me the high, white star of Truth, There bade me gaze, and there aspire. Even now their whispers pierce the gloom: What dost thou in this living tomb?”