Quotes to inspire and reflect

And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

In her sepulcher there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea.

And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love— I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me.

“Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,” The shade replied— “If you seek for Eldorado!”

And the fever called “Living” Is conquered at last.

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom.

Here once, through an alley Titanic, Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul— Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispèd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere: It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year.

It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door.

“Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!”

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

“Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore— Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

The silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, “Man,” And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of Space—out of Time.

And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot.

In the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace— Radiant palace—reared its head.

Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine— A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine.

And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy gray eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams— In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.

And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence.

While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city, lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest.

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome.

If I could dwell Where Israfel 1 Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw.

All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.

The happiest day—the happiest hour My sear’d and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives Thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise.

I am the somber one, the unconsoled widower, The Prince of Aquitaine whose tower was destroyed. 2 My only star is dead, and my star-studded lute Wears the black sun of Melancholy.

Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about.

Angel of the backward look.

“Who touches a hair of yon gray head Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.

The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.

The clustered spires of Frederick stand Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!” 2

Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn.

Health that mocks the doctor’s rules, Knowledge never learned of schools.

The age is dull and mean. Men creep, Not walk.