The Reading Room

“I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell! They ’d banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!”

“A Word is Dead A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.”

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted.”

“The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride, Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide, Earth a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true, And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.”

“In a serener Bright, In a more golden light I see Each little doubt and fear, Each little discord here Removed.”

“Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn Indicative that suns go down; The notice to the startled grass That darkness is about to pass.”

“Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell.”

“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.”

“Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chilliest land And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.”

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”

“Not with a club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone – A Whip so small you could not see it I've known”

“We never know we go,—when we are going We jest and shut the door; Fate following behind us bolts it, And we accost no more.”

“To see the Summer Sky Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie— True Poems flee—”

“I felt a Cleaving in my Mind— As if my Brain had split— I tried to match it—Seam by Seam— But could not make it fit. The thought behind, I strove to join Unto the thought before— But Sequence ravelled out of Sound Like Balls—upon a Floor.”

“I stepped from Plank to Plank So slow and cautiously The Stars about my Head I felt, About my Feet the Sea. I knew not but the next Would be my final inch — This gave me that precarious Gait Some call Experience.”

“A precious, mouldering pleasure ’t is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think.”

“A precious, mouldering pleasure ’tis To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old”

“Success is counted sweetest By those who ne’er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need.”

“I felt a Cleaving in my Mind— As if my Brain had split— I tried to match it—Seam by Seam— But could not make it fit.”

“Much Madness Is Divinest Sense Much Madness is divinest Sense — To a discerning Eye — Much Sense — the starkest Madness — 'Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail — Assent — and you are sane — Demur — you're straightway dangerous — And handled with a Chain —”

“A charm invests a face Imperfectly beheld,— The lady dare not lift her veil For fear it be dispelled. But peers beyond her mesh, And wishes, and denies,— Lest interview annul a want That image satisfies.”