“Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,Are a substantial world, both pure and good:Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,Our pastime and our happiness will grow.”

“When from our better selves we have too longBeen parted by the hurrying world, and droop,Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,How gracious, how benign, is Solitude”

“He spake of love, such love as spirits feelIn worlds whose course is equable and pure: No fears to beat away - no strife to heal, The past unsighed for, and the future sure.”

“One Lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,Taught both by what she shews, and what conceals,Never to blend our pleasure or our prideWith sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.”

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,For this, for everything, we are out of tune;It moves us not.—Great God! I'd rather beA Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.”

“The eye--it cannot choose but see;We cannot bid the ear be still;Our bodies feel, where'er they be,Against or with our will.”

“Imagination! lifting up itselfBefore the eye and progress of my SongLike and unfather'd vapour; here that PowerIn all the might of its endowments, cameAthwart me; I was lost as in a cloud,Halted without a struggle to break through,And now recovering to my Soul I sayI recognize they glory; in such strengthOf usurpation, in such visitingsOf awful promise, when the light of senseGoes out in flashes that have shewn to usThe invisible world, doth Greatness make abodeThere harbours whether we be young or old. Our destiny, our nature, and our homeIs with infinitude, and only there;With hope it is, hope that can never die,Effort, and expectation, and desire,And something evermore about to be.”