Stormy Mist

So saddened round her like an atmosphere     Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way, Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. -Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Adonais

Sea of Nothingness

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,     Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys,     But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; Even the dearest, that I love the best, And strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest. -John Clare (1793-1864), I am, written while he was confined in the General Lunatic Asylum in Northampton, where he spent about the last third of his life.

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars like skies at night. No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance. No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began. A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. -William Henry Davies (1871-1940), Leisure

We Stood Together

If I should be, where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence, wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; -William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey