Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced — Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it. - John Keats

Let me write not for fame and laurel, but from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful even if my night's labors be burnt each morning and no eye ever shine upon them.

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep,
He hath awaken'd from the dream of life;
'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife
Invulnerable nothings. We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind.

- To Sorrow