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From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye.
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O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
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I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not one's self.
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Because this age and the next age Engender in the ditch, No man can know a happy man From any passing wretch, If Folly link with Elegance No man knows which is which.
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It seems that I must bid the Muse to pack, / Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend / Until imagination, ear and eye, / Can be content with argument and deal / In abstract things; or be derided by / A sort of battered kettle at the heel.
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An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick
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It seems to me that love, if it is fine, is essentially a discipline.
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Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.
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I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea! We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fadeand flee; And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
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Mock mockers after that That would not lift a hand maybe To help good, wise or great To bar that foul storm out, for we Traffic in mockery.
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I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'
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I would that I were an old beggar Rolling a blind pearl eye, For he cannot see my lady Go gallivanting by.
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If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility.
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I went out to the hazelwood because a fire was in my head.
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Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.
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All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
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Neither Christ nor Buddha nor Socrates wrote a book, for to do so is to exchange life for a logical process.
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Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled. Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
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And when you sigh from kiss to kiss I hear white Beauty sighing, too, For hours when all must fade like dew.
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Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind, That loved his learning better than mankind, Though courteous to the worst; much falling he Brooded upon sanctity.
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Love is based on inequality as friendship is on equality.
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Eyes spiritualised by death can judge, I cannot, but I am not content.
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Women are hard and proud and stubborn-hearted, Their heads being turned with praise and flattery; And that is why their lovers are afraid To tell them a plain story.
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Because I helped to wind the clock, I come to hear it strike.