That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.
Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea And still the sea is salt.
If a man will comprehend the richness and variety of the universe, and inspire his mind with a due measure of wonder and awe, he must contemplate the human intellect not only on its heights of genius but in its abysses of ineptitude.
Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
White in the moon the long road lies.
A moment’s thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
You smile upon your friend to-day, To-day his ills are over; You hearken to the lover’s say, And happy is the lover. ‘Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never: I shall have lived a little while Before I die for ever.
Into my hear an air that kills through yon far country blows what are those blue remembered hills what spires,what farms are those? that is the land of lost content I can see it shining plain the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
Poems very seldom consist of poetry and nothing else; and pleasure can be derived also from their other ingredients. I am convinced that most readers, when they think they are admiring poetry, are deceived by inability to analyse their sensations, and that they are really admiring, not the poetry of the passage before them, but something else in it, which they like better than poetry.
When the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.
Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
Give me a land of boughs in leaf A land of trees that stand; Where trees are fallen there is grief; I love no leafless land.
The thoughts of others Were light and fleeting, Of lovers’ meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready When trouble came.
All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.
