No one can read with profit that which he cannot learn to read with pleasure. |
O man-projected Figure, of late / Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive? / Whence came it we were tempted to create / One whom we can no longer keep alive? |
Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them. |
Once victim, always victim -- that's the law! |
Only a man harrowing clods / In a slow silent walk / With an old horse that stumbles and nods / Half asleep as they stalk. |
Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity |
Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child's play. |
Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child's play. |
Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art. |
Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings. |
She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises. |
Silent? ah, he is silent! He can keep silence well. That man's silence is wonderful to listen to. |
Smile out; but still suffer: / The paths of love are rougher / Than thoroughfares of stones. |
So little cause for carolings / Of such ecstatic sound / Was written on terrestrial things / Afar or nigh around, / That I could think there trembled through / His happy good-night air / Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew / And I was unaware. |
So zestfully canst thou sing? / And all this indignity, / With God's consent, on thee! / Blinded ere yet a-wing. |