“a single word even may be a spark of inextinguishable thought”

“What is life? Thoughts and feelings arise, with or without our will, and we employ words to express them. We are born, and our birth is unremembered and our infancy remembered but in fragments. We live on, and in living we lose the apprehension of life. How vain is it to think that words can penetrate the mystery of our being. Rightly used they may make evident our ignorance of ourselves, and this is much.”

“We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day.We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,The path of its departure still is free.Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;Nought may endure but Mutability!”

“Nothing in the world is single;All things by a law divineIn one spirit meet and mingle.Why not I with thine?”

“Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.”

“Good-night? ah! no; the hour is illWhich severs those it should unite;Let us remain together still,Then it will be good night.How can I call the lone night good,Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?Be it not said, thought, understood --Then it will be -- good night.To hearts which near each other moveFrom evening close to morning light,The night is good; because, my love,They never say good-night.”

“The splendors of the firmament of timeMay be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;Like stars to their appointed height they climbAnd death is a low mist which cannot blotThe brightness it may veil.”