Emily Dickinson
“These tested Our Horizon —Then disappearedAs Birds before achievingA Latitude.” — Emily Dickinson, from “[896],” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (Little,Brown and Company, 1960)
Category: Romanticism
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To the attentive eye,each moment of the yearhas its own beauty,and in the same field,it beholds,every hour,a picture which was never seen before,and which shall never be seen again. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature; Addresses and Lectures.(1849)
Walt Whitman
SOMETIMES with one I love, I fill myself with rage, forfear I effuse unreturn’d love;But now I think there is no unreturn’d love—the payis certain, one way or another;(I loved a certain person ardently, and my love wasnot return’d;Yet out of that, I have written these songs.) — Walt Whitman, “Sometimes With One I Love,”… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing… Continue reading Walt Whitman
William Blake
He whose face gives no light shall never become a star. — William Blake
E.E. Cummings
come a little further – why be afraid –here’s the earliest star(have you a wish?)touch me,before we perish (believe that not anything which has ever beeninvented can spoil this or this instant)kiss me a little:the airdarkens and is alive –o live with me in the fewness ofthese colours;alone who slightlyalways are beyond the reach of death… Continue reading E.E. Cummings
Alexander Pushkin
I’ve lived to se my longings die:My dreams and I have grown apart;Now only sorrow haunts my eye,The wages of a bitter heart. Beneath the storms of hostile fate,My flowery wreath has faded fast;I live alone and sadly waitTo see when death will come at last. Just so, when the winds in winter moanAnd snow… Continue reading Alexander Pushkin
Sara Teasdale
Those who love the most,Do not talk of their love,Francesca, Guinevere,Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,In the fragrant gardens of heavenAre silent, or speak if at allOf fragile inconsequent things. And a woman I used to knowWho loved one man from her youth,Against the strength of the fatesFighting in somber prideNever spoke of this thing,But hearing his name… Continue reading Sara Teasdale
Walt Whitman
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.Night, sleep, and the stars. ― Walt Whitman, “A Clear Midnight,” in the section “From Noon to Starry Night” in the seventh… Continue reading Walt Whitman
E.E. Cummings
[Humanity i love you] Humanity i love youbecause you would rather black the boots ofsuccess than enquire whose soul dangles from hiswatch-chain which would be embarassing for both parties and because youunflinchingly applaud allsongs containing the words country home andmother when sung at the old howard Humanity i love you becausewhen you’re hard up you… Continue reading E.E. Cummings
The Vale of Soul-Making 