“A Robin Redbreast in a CagePuts all Heaven in a Rage.A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeonsShudders Hell thro’ all its regions.A Dog starv’d at his Master’s GatePredicts the ruin of the State.A Horse misus’d upon the RoadCalls to Heaven for Human blood.Each outcry of the hunted HareA fiber from the Brain does tear.”

“Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.”

“Men are admitted into heaven not because they have curbed and governed their passions or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The treasures of heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate uncurbed in their eternal glory.”

“The Learned, who strive to ascend into Heaven by means of learning, appear to Children like dead horses, when repelled by the celestial spheres.”

“I am made to sow the thistle for wheat; the nettle for a nourishing daintyI have planted a false oath in the earth, it has brought forth a poison treeI have chosen the serpent for a councellor & the dog for a schoolmaster to my childrenI have blotted out from light & living the dove & the nightingaleAnd I have caused the earthworm to beg from door to door I have taught the thief a secret path into the house of the justI have taught pale artifice to spread his nets upon the morningMy heavens are brass my earth is iron my moon a clod of clayMy sun a pestilence burning at noon & a vapor of death in nightWhat is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the priceOf all that a man hath his house his wife his childrenWisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buyAnd in the withered field where the farmer plows for bread in vainIt is an easy thing to triumph in the summers sun And in the vintage & to sing on the waggon loaded with cornIt is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflictedTo speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wandererTo listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry seasonWhen the red blood is filled with wine & with the marrow of lambs It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elementsTo hear a dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moanTo see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blastTo hear the sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies houseTo rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his childrenWhile our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits and flowersThen the groans & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the millAnd the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the fieldWhen the shattered bone hath laid him groaning among the happier deadIt is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity Thus could I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!”

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

“This life's dim windows of the soulDistorts the heavens from pole to poleAnd leads you to believe a lieWhen you see with, not through, the eye.”