Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked. And death was observed with sudden cries, And birth with laughter and pain. And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies And night came down again.

One is least sure of one’s self, sometimes, when one is most positive.

The truth – a hideous spectacle!

Life is the thing – the song of life – The eager plow, the thirsty knife!

No god save self, that is the way to live...

For in this walk, this voyage, it is yourself, the profound history of your ‘self,’ that now as always you encounter.

All that is beautiful, and all that looks on beauty with eyes filled with fire, like a lover’s eyes: all of this is yours; you gave it to me, sunlight! all these stars are yours; you gave them to me, skies!

All lovely things will have an ending, all lovely things will fade and die; and youth, that’s now so bravely spending, Will beg a penny by and by.

The hiss was now becoming a roar – the whole world was a vast moving screen of snow – but even now it said peace, it said remoteness, it said cold, it said sleep.

It’s time to make love, douse the glim; The fireflies twinkle and dim; The stars lean together Like birds of a feather, And the loin lies down with the limb.