Oh, how beautiful is the summer night, which is not night, but a sunless, yet unclouded, day, descending upon earth with dews and shadows and refreshing coolness! How beautiful the long mild twilight, which, like a silver clasp, unites today with yesterday!
I have a passion for ballad. . . . They are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths of literature,--in the genial Summertime.
Many people do not allow their principles to take root, but pull them up every now and then, as children do the flowers they have planted, to see if they are growing.
In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face the face of one long dead Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness, the taste and stain from the lees of the vat.
Magnificent autumn! He comes not like a pilgrim, clad in russet weeds; not like a hermit, clad in gray; but like a warrior with the stain of blood in his brazen mail.