“Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.”

The thoughts of others were light and fleeting, Of lovers’ meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready When trouble came.

Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die, No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea And still the sea is salt.

Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.

With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.

Do not ever read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all you need from reading poetry.

I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.

I think that to transfuse emotion – not to transmit thought but to set up in the reader’s sense a vibration corresponding to what was felt by the writer – is the peculiar function of poetry.

Good religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.

Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

White in the moon the long road lies.

On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover; Breath’s aware that will not keep. Up, lad: when the journey’s over then there’ll be time enough to sleep.

The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me.

There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.

The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.

Tomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.