The highest exercise of imagination is not to devise what has no existence, but rather to perceive what really exists, though unseen by the outward eye-not creation, but insight.
Some critics are like chimney-sweepers; they put out the fire below, and frighten the swallows from their nests above; they scrape a long time in the chimney, cover themselves with soot, and bring nothing away but a bag of cinders, and then sing from the top of the house as if they had built it.
Gone are the living, but the dead remain, And not neglected; for a hand unseen, Scattering its bounty like a summer rain, Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.
How can I tell the signals and the signs
By which one heart another heart divines?
How can I tell the many thousand ways
By which it keeps the secret it betrays?
I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeon, In the round-tower of my heart, And there will I keep you forever, Yes, forever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in the dust away!