As idle as a painted Ship
Upon a painted Ocean.
//
The western wave was all a flame.
—THE RIME OF THE ANCYENT MARINERE, IN SEVEN PARTS.

In nature there is nothing melancholy.
—THE NIGHTINGALE; A CONVERSATIONAL POEM, WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798.

Love, now an universal birth.
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth,
—It is the hour of feeling.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above;
We’ll frame the measure of our souls,
They shall be tuned to love.
—LINES WRITTEN AT A SMALL DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE, AND SENT BY MY LITTLE BOY TO THE PERSON TO WHOM THEY ARE ADDRESSED.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.
—I’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning.
Alas! the gratitude of men
Has oftner left me mourning.
—SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN, WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED..

To her fair works did nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it griev’d my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose-tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trail’d its wreathes;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
—LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison.
//
His angry spirit healed and harmonized
By the benignant touch of love and beauty.
—THE DUNGEON.

A fire was once within my brain
—THE MAD MOTHER.

“The eye it cannot chuse but see,
“We cannot bid the ear be still;
“Our bodies feel, where’er they be,
“Against, or with our will.
—EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY.

His black matted head on his shoulder is bent,
And deep is the sigh of his breath,
And with stedfast dejection his eyes are intent
On the fetters that link him to death.
//
But if grief, self-consumed, in oblivion would doze,
And conscience her tortures appease,
’Mid tumult and uproar this man must repose;
In the comfortless vault of disease.
—THE CONVICT.

And now, with gleams of half-extinguish’d thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again
//
in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart.
—LINES WRITTEN A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR, July 13, 1798.