“You appear to me not to have understood the nature of my body & mind. Partly from ill-health, & partly from an unhealthy & reverie-like vividness of Thoughts, & (pardon the pedantry of the phrase) a diminished Impressibility from Things, my ideas, wishes, & feelings are to a diseased degree disconnected from motion & action. In plain and natural English, I am a dreaming & therefore an indolent man. I am a Starling self-incaged, & always in the Moult, & my whole Note is, Tomorrow, & tomorrow, & tomorrow.”

“IIA grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,      A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,      Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,          In word, or sigh, or tear — O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,      All this long eve, so balmy and serene,Have I been gazing on the western sky,      And its peculiar tint of yellow green:And still I gaze — and with how blank an eye!And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,That give away their motion to the stars;Those stars, that glide behind them or between,Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grewIn its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;I see them all so excellently fair,I see, not feel how beautiful they are!III          My genial spirits fail;          And what can these availTo lift the smothering weight from off my breast?          It were a vain endeavour,          Though I should gaze for everOn that green light that lingers in the west:I may not hope from outward forms to winThe passion and the life, whose fountains are within.”

“The selfmoment I could pray;And from my neck so freeThe Albatross fell off, and sankLike lead into the sea.”

“And in Life's noisiest hour,There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within ;And to the leading Love-throb in the HeartThro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat ;You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer EveOn rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.”

“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.”

“Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rangFrom morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted meWith a wild pleasure, falling on mine earMost like articulate sounds of things to come!So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!And so I brooded all the following morn,Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eyeFixed with mock study on my swimming book.”

“If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself.”