This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
_Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.
When I could not sleep for cold
I had fire enough in my brain,
And builded with roofs of gold
My beautiful castles in Spain!
_Aladdin_. J.R. LOWELL.
Egeria! sweet creation of some heart
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
Or wert,--a young Aurora of the air,
The nympholepsy of some fond despair;
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,
Who found a more than common votary there
Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth,
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
When at the close of each sad, sorrowing day,
Fancy restores what vengeance snatched away.
_Eloise to Abélard_. A. POPE.
We figure to ourselves
The thing we like, and then we build it up
As chance will have it, on the rock or sand:
For Thought is tired of wandering o'er the world,
And homebound Fancy runs her bark ashore.
_Philip Van Artevelde, Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 5_. SIR H. TAYLOR.