Philip James Bailey

Worthy books
Are not companions--they are solitudes:
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.

Worthy books
Are not companions--they are solitudes:
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.

Corruption springs from light: 'tis one same power
Creates, preserves, destroys; matter whereon
It works, on e'er read more

Corruption springs from light: 'tis one same power
Creates, preserves, destroys; matter whereon
It works, on e'er self-transmutative form,
Common to now the living, now the dead.

The death-change comes.
Death is another life. We bow our heads
At going out, we think, and read more

The death-change comes.
Death is another life. We bow our heads
At going out, we think, and enter straight
Another golden chamber of the king's
Larger than this we leave, and lovelier.
And then in shadowy glimpses, disconnect,
The story, flower-like, closes thus its leaves.
The will of God is all in all. He makes,
Destroys, remakes, for His own pleasure, all.

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one's self.

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one's self.

Night comes, world-jewelled, . . .
The stars rush forth in myriads as to wage
War with read more

Night comes, world-jewelled, . . .
The stars rush forth in myriads as to wage
War with the lines of Darkness; and the moon,
Pale ghost of Night, comes haunting the cold earth
After the sun's red sea-death--quietless.