“THE OWLSby: Charles BaudelaireUNDER the overhanging yews,The dark owls sit in solemn state,Like stranger gods; by twos and twosTheir red eyes gleam. They meditate. Motionless thus they sit and dreamUntil that melancholy hourWhen, with the sun's last fading gleam,The nightly shades assume their power. From their still attitude the wiseWill learn with terror to despiseAll tumult, movement, and unrest; For he who follows every shade,Carries the memory in his breast,Of each unhappy journey made.'The Owls' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919.”

“In winter darkness, the Baghdad Arabian keen blue deepness of the piercing lovely January winter's dusk--it used to tear my heart out, one stabbing soft star was in the middle of the magicalest blue, throbbing like love--I saw Maggie's black hair in this night-- In the shelves of Orion her eye shades, borrowed, gleamed a dark and proud vellum somber power brooding rich bracelets of the moon rose from our snow, and surrounded the mystery.”

“there was no gleam, no shadow, for the heavens, too, were one still, pale cloud; no sound or motion in anything but the dark river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow.”

“Now the red eyes and the light above seemed to bore into Charles, and again the pupils fo the little boy's eyes contracted. When the final point of black was lost in blue he turned away from the red eyes, looked at Meg, and smiled sweetly, but the smile was not Charles Wallaces smile.”

“Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful!' and sitting in the shade.”

“They are idols of hearts and of households;They are angels of God in disguise;The sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,His glory still gleams in their eyes,These truants from home and from heaven,They have made me more manly and mild;And I know now how Jesus could likenThe kingdom of God to a child.”