“What I do is me, for that I came.”

“ELECTED Silence, sing to me And beat upon my whorlèd ear, Pipe me to pastures still and be The music that I care to hear.”

“As Kingfishers Catch FireAs kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;As tumbled over rim in roundy wellsStones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell'sBow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;Selves -- goes itself; _myself_ it speaks and spells,Crying _What I do is me: for that I came_.I say more: the just man justices;Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not hisTo the Father through the features of men's faces.”

“NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of manIn me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.”

“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')”

“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....”

“I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.”