I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man's attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones.

The true poet is all the time a visionary and whether with friends or not, as much alone as a man on his death bed.

Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

You ask what I have found and far and wide I go, Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's murderous crew, The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay, And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen where are they?

The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

I thought it out this very day, Noon upon the clock, A man may put pretence away Who leans upon a stick, May sing, and sing until he drop, Whether to maid or hag....

Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.

How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics? Yet here's a travelled man that knows What he talks about, And there's a politician That has read and thought, And maybe what they say is true Of war and war's alarms, But O that I were young again And held her in my arms!