Quotes to inspire and reflect

He lives, he wakes—’tis Death is dead, not he.

He is made one with Nature: there is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder to the song of night’s sweet bird.

He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world’s slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain.

He hath awakened from the dream of life.

The Pilgrim of Eternity [Lord Byron], whose fame Over his living head like heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow.

In mockery of monumental stone.

Alas! that all we loved of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal!

As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

Ah woe is me! Winter is come and gone, But grief returns with the revolving year.

A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.

Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!

To that high capital, where kingly Death Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, He came.

I weep for Adonais [John Keats] 4 —he is dead! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity!

What! alive, and so bold, O earth?

The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last!

Kings are like stars—they rise and set, they have The worship of the world, but no repose.

The world’s great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn.

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness, From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

Thou art unseen—but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

A lovely lady, garmented in light From her own beauty.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number— Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you— Ye are many—they are few.

He tossed them human hearts to chew.

An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king. 2

I met Murder on the way— He had a mask like Castlereagh. 3

I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright.

Hell is a city much like London— A populous and smoky city.

Men of England, wherefore plow For the lords who lay ye low?

Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

Chameleons feed on light and air: Poets’ food is love and fame.

That thus enchains us to permitted ill— We might be otherwise—we might be all We dream of happy, high majestical. Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek, But in our mind?

And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

Familiar acts are beautiful through love.

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave; A dupe and a deceiver; a decay; A traveler from the cradle to the grave Through the dim light of this immortal day.

To know nor faith, nor love nor law; to be Omnipotent but friendless is to reign.

Death is the veil which those who live call life: They sleep, and it is lifted. 1

Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality!

From the dust of creeds outworn.