Quotes to inspire and reflect

A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the earth.

On that green light that lingers in the west: I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

O lady! we receive but what we give And in our life alone does Nature live.

I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows, Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.

In the hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column; In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honeydew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora.

It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion.

A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place (Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fringèd lids, and holds them close, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, “Where is it?”

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round.

The frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind.

Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.

That saints will aid if men will call: For the blue sky bends over all!

Her gentle limbs did she undress, And lay down in her loveliness.

A sight to dream of, not to tell!

The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can.

’Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.

A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn.

He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.

O Wedding Guest! This soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely ’twas, that God himself Scarce seemèd there to be.

“Ha! ha!” quoth he, “full plain I see, The Devil knows how to row.”

I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach.

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, That eats the she-wolf’s young.

No voice; but oh! the silence sank Like music on my heart.

Is this the hill? is this the kirk? Is this mine own countree?

Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.

The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.

A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune.

O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware.

Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole.

The moving moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide; Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main, Like April hoarfrost spread; But where the ship’s huge shadow lay, The charmed water burnt alway A still and awful red.

Alone, alone, all, all alone; Alone on a wide, wide sea.

I fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand. 1

The hornèd Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip.

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye.

We listened and looked sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My lifeblood seemed to sip.

The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper o’er the sea Off shot the specter bark.

“The game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!” Quoth she, and whistles thrice.