"The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride, Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide, Earth a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue."

"Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it."

"I had been hungry all the years-My noon had come, to dine-I, trembling, drew the table nearAnd touched the curious wine. 'Twas this on tables I had seenWhen turning, hungry, lone,I looked in windows, for the wealthI could not hope to own. I did not know the ample bread,'Twas so unlike the crumbThe birds and I had often sharedIn Nature's diningroom. The plenty hurt me, 'twas so new,--Myself felt ill and odd,As berry of a mountain bushTransplanted to the road. Nor was I hungry; so I foundThat hunger was a wayOf persons outside windows,The entering takes away."

"My friends are my estate."

"The mere sense of living is joy enough."

"Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted."

"I died for beauty but was scarceAdjusted in the tomb,When one who died for truth was lainIn an adjoining room.He questioned softly why I failed?"For beauty," I replied."And I for truth, the two are one;We brethren are," he said.And so, as kinsmen met a night,We talked between the rooms,Until the moss had reached our lips,And covered up our names."

"Love is like the wild rose-briar;Friendship like the holly-tree.The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms,But which will bloom most constantly?The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,Its summer blossoms scent the air;Yet wait till winter comes again,And who will call the wild-briar fair?Then, scorn the silly rose-wreath now,And deck thee with holly's sheen,That, when December blights thy brow,He still may leave thy garland green."

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs."

"That it will never come again is what makes life sweet."

"I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there 's a pair of us-don't tell! They 'd banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!"

"Time is a Test of Trouble - But not a Remedy - If such it proved it proves too There was no Melody."

"For love is immortality."

"A wounded deer leaps the highest."

"It was not death, for I stood up,And all the dead lie down;It was not night, for all the bellsPut out their tongues, for noon.It was not frost, for on my fleshI felt siroccos crawl,Nor fire, for just my marble feetCould keep a chancel cool.And yet it tasted like them all;The figures I have seenSet orderly, for burial,Reminded me of mine,As if my life were shavenAnd fitted to a frame,And could not breathe without a key;And I was like midnight, some,When everything that ticked has stopped,And space stares, all around,Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,Repeal the beating ground.But most like chaos,--stopless, cool,Without a chance or spar,--Or even a report of landTo justify despair."

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant."

"He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust."

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all."

"Dying is a wild night and a new road."

"Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned."

"I many times thought peace had come, When peace was far away; As wrecked men deem they sight the land At centre of the sea, And struggle slacker, but to prove, As hopelessly as I, How many the fictitious shores Before the harbor lie."

"Superiority to fate is difficult to gain 'tis not conferred of any but possible to earn."

"The Soul selects her own Society."

"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."

"A charm invests a faceImperfectly beheld,-The lady dare not lift her veilFor fear it be dispelled.But peers beyond her mesh,And wishes, and denies,-Lest interview annul a wantThat image satisfies."

"Your brain is wider than the sky."

"Heart, we will forget him,You and I, tonight!You must forget the warmth he gave,I will forget the light."

"The hearts that never lean must fall."

"I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality."

"To be alive — is Power."

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry."

"The brain is wider than the sky."

"We never know how high we areTill we are called to rise;And then, if we are true to plan,Our statures touch the skies.The heroism we reciteWould be a daily thing,Did not ourselves the cubits warpFor fear to be a king."

"Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent."

"She died--this was the way she died;And when her breath was done,Took up her simple wardrobeAnd started for the sun.Her little figure at the gateThe angels must have spied,Since I could never find herUpon the mortal side."

"A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend."

"My only sketch profile of heaven is a large blue sky and larger than the biggest I have seen in June-and in it are my friends-every one of them."

"How happy is the little stoneThat rambles in the road alone,And doesn't care about careers,And exigencies never fears;Whose coat of elemental brownA passing universe put on;And independent as the sun,Associates or glows alone,Fulfilling absolute decreeIn casual simplicity."

"Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes."

"PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there's a word to lift your hat to... to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that's the genius behind poetry."

"Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate."

"I measure every Grief I meetWith narrow, probing, Eyes;I wonder if It weighs like Mine,Or has an Easier size."

"If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."

"I stepped from Plank to PlankSo slow and cautiouslyThe Stars about my Head I felt,About my Feet the Sea.I knew not but the nextWould be my final inch -This gave me that precarious GaitSome call Experience."

"My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to seeIf Immortality unveil A third event to me,So huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell.Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell."

"The Truth must dazzle gradually. Or every man be blind."

"So bashful when I spied her!So pretty - so ashamed!So hidden in her leafletsLest anybody find -So breathless till I passed her -So helpless when I turnedAnd bore her struggling, blushing,Her simple haunts beyond!For whom I robbed the Dingle -For whom betrayed the Dell -Many, will doubtless ask me,But I shall never tell!"

"Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon."

"Finite to fail but infinite to venture."

"People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles."