“Well he knows his course has hasted
Through delicious sin,
Borne tumultuously along.
Never have the stars above
Chronicled such utter love.”

The Poet (1830)
Context: The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,
He saw thro' his own soul.
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open scroll,
Before him lay; with echoing feet he threaded
The secretest walks of fame:
The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed
And wing'd with flame,
Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue...

Source: The Gospel in Ezekiel Illustrated in a Series of Discourses (1856), P. 32 (The Defiler).

Showcase (1966) by Roy Newquist

The Basque girl and Henri Quatre from The London Literary Gazette (12th October 1822)
The Improvisatrice (1824)

II.
Prometheus (1816)
Context: Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity
Was thine — and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled,
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

Source: Path of Life (1909), p. 108

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

Variant: I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
Source: Les Misérables

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012)