“I never was in love - yet the voice and the shape of a woman has haunted me these two days.”

“No sooner had I stepp'd into these pleasuresThan I began to think of rhymes and measures:The air that floated by me seem'd to say'Write! thou wilt never have a better day.”

“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”

“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”

“And we will shadeOurselves whole summers by a river glade;And I will tell thee stories of the sky,And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy,My happy love will overwing all bounds!O let me melt into thee! let the soundsOf our close voices marry at their birth;Let us entwine hoveringly!”

“When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact’ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be”

“This living hand, now warm and capableOf earnest grasping, would, if it were coldAnd in the icy silence of the tomb,So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nightsThat thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood,So in my veins red life might stream again,And thou be conscience-calm'd. See, here it is--I hold it towards you.”