“Nothing is so beautiful as Spring-When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;(from "Spring")”
“I bear a basket lined with grass;I am so light, I am so fair,That men must wonder as I passAnd at the basket that I bear,Where in a newly-drawn green litterSweet flowers I carry, -- sweets for bitter.Lilies I shew you, lilies none,None in Caesar’s gardens blow, --And a quince in hand, -- not oneIs set, because their buds not spring;Spring not, ‘cause world is wintering....”
“What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”
“And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”
“Spring and Fall: To a Young ChildMárgarét, are you gríevingOver Goldengrove unleaving?Leáves, líke the things of man, youWith your fresh thoughts care for, can you?Ah! ás the heart grows olderIt will come to such sights colderBy and by, nor spare a sighThough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;And yet you wíll weep and know why.Now no matter, child, the name:Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressedWhat heart heard of, ghost guessed:It ís the blight man was born for,It is Margaret you mourn for.”
“After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.”
“The effect of studying masterpieces is to make me admire and do otherwise. So it must be on every original artist to some degree, on me to a marked degree.(from notes on 'Heraclitean Fire')”