George Meredith

On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose, Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend . . . He reached a middle height, and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank. Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law.

'But how divine is utterance!' she said. 'As we to the brutes, poets are to us.'

Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.

Speech is the small change of silence.

Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star. Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried, Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown eve-jar.

Lowly, with a broken neck, The crocus lays her cheek to mire.

Not till the fire is dying in the grate, Look we for any kinship with the stars.

Cynicism is intellectual dandyism.