The Angel In The House (1854)

• Ah, wasteful woman, she who may
  On her sweet self set her own price,
  Knowing man cannot choose but pay,
  How has she cheapen'd paradise;
  How given for nought her priceless gift,
  How spoil'd the bread and spill'd the wine,
  Which, spent with due, respective thrift,
  Had made brutes men, and men divine.
  • Book I, Canto III, III Unthrift.

• Kind souls, you wonder why, love you,
  When you, you wonder why, love none.
  We love, Fool, for the good we do,
  Not that which unto us is done!
  • Book I, Canto VI, IV A Riddle Solved.

• Love wakes men, once a lifetime each;
  They lift their heavy lids, and look;
  And, lo, what one sweet page can teach,
  They read with joy, then shut the book.
  • Book I, Canto VIII, II The Revelation.
• I drew my bride, beneath the moon,
  Across my threshold; happy hour!
  But, ah, the walk that afternoon
  We saw the water-flags in flower!
  • Book I, Canto VIII, III The Spirit's Epochs.

• "I saw you take his kiss!" "'Tis true."
  "O, modesty!" "'Twas strictly kept:
  He thought me asleep; at least, I knew
  He thought I thought he thought I slept."
  • Book II, Canto VIII, III The Kiss.

• A woman is a foreign land.
  • Book II. Canto IX, II The Foreign Land.

The Unknown Eros and Other Poems (1877)

• The sunshine dreaming upon Salmon’s height
  Is not so sweet and white
  As the most heretofore sin-spotted Soul
  That darts to its delight
  Straight from the absolution of a faithful fight.
  • Peace, p. 28.

• Life is not life at all without delight.
  • Victory in Defeat, p. 36.

• To have nought
  Is to have all things without care or thought!
  • Legem Tuam Dilexi, p. 47.

• Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,
  I struck him, and dismiss'd
  With hard words and unkiss'd,
  —His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
  • The Toys, p. 50.

• For want of me the world’s course will not fail;
  When all its work is done the lie shall rot;
  The truth is great and shall prevail
  When none cares whether it prevail or not.
  • Magna est Veritas, p. 62.

• None thrives for long upon the happiest dream.
  • Tired Memory, p. 95.

• The flower of olden sanctities.
  • 1867, p. 123.