

“When tenderness softened her heart, and the sublime feeling of universal love penetrated her, she found no voice that replied so well to hers as the gentle singing of the pines under the air of noon, and the soft murmurs of the breeze that scattered her hair and freshened her cheek, and the dashing of the waters that has no beginning or end.”
― Valperga
― Valperga

“There is an infinite force, an eternal life, that is everything that is, that was and will become, that engenders itself in mysterious ways, that remains eternal during all change and dying. It is at the same time the ground of all things and the things themselves, the condition and the conditioned, the creator and the creature, and it divides and separates itself in various figures, becomes sun, moon, stars, plants, animal and human being together, and flows through itself in fresh streams of life and contemplates itself in human beings in holy humility.”
―
―

“Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs�
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.”
― The Complete Poems
To the wild wood and the downs�
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.”
― The Complete Poems

“Poetry turns all things to loveliness; it exalts the beauty of that which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is most deformed; it marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eternity and change; it subdues to union under its light yoke all irreconcilable things. It transmutes all that it touches, and every form moving within the radiance of its presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes: its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is the spirit of its forms.”
― A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays
― A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays

“What is the world, except that which we feel? Love, and hope, and delight, or sorrow and tears; these are our lives, our realities, to which we give the names of power, possession, misfortune, and death.”
― Valperga
― Valperga

A very interesting sub-genre of the Romantic era that borders on Gothic fiction, Dark Romanticism effectively offers flawed human beings, who give in ...more

Wits, Words & Spirits! Who Are We? We are a group of like minded individuals who haunt dark halls and cemeteries, armed with pens, books and black li ...more

Poetry lovers discuss poems, novels, books and films, especially by or featuring John Keats, PB and Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. And possibly Ben Wish ...more
Emily’s 2024 Year in Books
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