“Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!”

“Then felt I like like some watcher of the skiesWhen a new planet swims into his ken;Like stout Cortes when with eagle eyesHe star'd at the Pacific-and all his menLook'd at each other with a wild surmiseSilent upon a peak in Darien”

“Softly the breezes from the forest came,Softly they blew aside the taper's flame;Clear was the song from Philomel's far bower;Grateful the incense from the lime-tree flower;Mysterious, wild, the far-heard trumpet's tone;Lovely the moon in ether, all alone:Sweet too, the converse of these happy mortals,As that of busy spirits when the portalsAre closing in the west; or that soft hummingWe hear around when Hesperus is coming.Sweet be their sleep.”

“Dancing music, music sad,Both together, sane and mad…”

“I equally dislike the favor of the public with the love of a woman -- they are both a cloying treacle to the wings of independence”

“I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.”

“O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,— Nature’s observatory—whence the dell, Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep ’Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell. But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee, Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d, Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.To Solitude”