“The past and the present wilt. I have fill’d them, emptied them,And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.”

“The future is no more uncertain than the present.”

“My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth.I have look'd for equals and lovers an found them ready for me in all lands,I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them”

“O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer.That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.”

“And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future,And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to beautiful results,And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death,And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact,And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.”

“The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,They scorn the best I can do to relate them.”

“Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems”