I went out to the hazelwood
because a fire was in my head.

The only business of the head in the world
is to bow a ceaseless obeiscence to the heart.

The blessed spirits must be sought
within the self which is common to all.

Renounce that drudgery,
Call the Muses home.

The mystical life is at the centre
of all that I do
and all that I think about
and all that I write.

Ecstasy is from the contemplation
of things vaster than the individual
and imperfectly seen, perhaps,
by all those that still live.

I bring you with reverent hands
the books of my numberless dreams.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned.

In life, courtesy and self-possession and in the arts style,
and the sensible impressions of the free mind,
for both arise out of a delicate shaping of all things
and from never being swept away,
whatever the emotion, into confusion or dullness,

And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.

But love has pitched her mansion in
The place of excrement
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.

Oh, 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.

O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music; O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Like a long-leggged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.

At stroke of midnight soul cannot endure
A bodily or mental furniture.

The friends have it I do wrong
Whenever I remake my song
Should know what issue is a stake.
It is myself that I remake.

I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.

All hatred driven hence
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

The innocent and the beautiful
have no enemy but time.

Land of Heart's Desire,
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
but joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrowbone.

Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.

I carry the sun in a golden up,
The moon in a silver bag.

And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.