Thomas Carlyle:

 „so could i write a _Spirit of Clothes_; thus, with an _Esprit des Lois_, properly an _Esprit de Coutumes, we should have an _Esprit de Costumes_. For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man proceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided on by mysterious operations of the Mind. In all his Modes, and habilatory endeavors, an Architectural Idea will be found lurking; his Body and the Cloth are the site and materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, of a Person, is to be built”(T. 

Carlyle, Chapter V, Sartor Resartus, Project Gutenberg, Etext #1051).GUTTENBERG 

Milton. 

Refusing all definite form, The abtract horror roof’d, Stony hard;And a first age passed over, & a state of dismal woe.  

AN IMMORALITY

 

Sing we for love and idleness,

Naught else is worth the having.

Though I have been in many a land,

There is naught else in living.

 

And I would rather have my sweet,

Though rose-leaves die of grieving,

Than do high deeds in Hungary

To pass all men’s believing.

 

Ezra Pound 

 

THE ROSE OF THE WORLD

 

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,

Mournful that no new wonder may betide,

Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,

And Usna’s children died.

 

We and the laboring world are passing by:

Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place,

Like the pale waters in their wintry race,

Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,

Lives on this lonely face.

 

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:

Before you were, or any hearts to beat,

Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;

He made the world to be a grassy road

Before her wandering feet.

 

William Butler Yeats

 

EQUINOCTIAL

 

The sun of life has crossed the line;

The summer-shine of lengthened light

Faded and failed, till, where I stand,

‘Tis equal day and equal night.

 

One after one, as dwindling hours,

Youth’s glowing hopes have dropped away,

And soon may barely leave the gleam

That coldly scores a winter’s day.

 

I am not young; I am not old;

The flush of morn, the sunset calm,

Paling and deepening, each to each,

Meet midway with a solemn charm.

 

One side I see the summer fields,

Not yet disrobed of all their green;

While westerly, along the hills,

Flame the first tints of frosty sheen.

 

Ah, middle-point, where cloud and storm

Make battle-ground of this my life!

Where, even-matched, the night and day

Wage round me their September strife!

 

I bow me to the threatening gale:

I know when that is overpast,

Among the peaceful harvest days,

An Indian Summer comes at last!

 

Adeline D. T. Whitney [1824-1906]