A Commonplace Book

Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,

Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.

SPENSER · THE FAERIE QUEENE, I.IX

n.b. — Despair's argument, and the most beautiful lie in the poem. Beware of comfort that rhymes this well.

The price is never the price.

TRADITIONAL · ON BARGAINS WITH FAERIE

n.b. — The oldest rule of faerie, and of markets: the price is never the price.

The lunatic, the lover and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.

SHAKESPEARE · A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, V.I

n.b. — Theseus means it as a dismissal. The play spends five acts proving him wrong.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

KEATS · ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

n.b. — “Forlorn” tolls him back to himself; it has been tolling readers back ever since.