'Yea!' said the voice, 'thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood. 'If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour? 'Then comes the check, the change, the fall. Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all. 'Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, Link'd month to month with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain. 'Thou hadst not between death and birth Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labour little worth.

'Nay - rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise. 'When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue, Among…

'That men with knowledge merely play'd, I told thee - hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade; 'Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named…

'Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground? 'The memory of the wither'd leaf In endless time is s…

Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts? Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the …

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, th…

The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient; the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing: there is no pain as great as being alive, no burden heavie…