“I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!”

“Pasture, stone wall, and steeple,What most perturbs the mind:The heart-rending homely people,Or the horrible beautiful kind?”

“In the country whereto I goI shall not see the face of my friendNor her hair the color of sunburnt grasses;Together we shall not findThe land on whose hills bends the new moonIn air traversed of birds.What have I thought of love?I have said, "It is beauty and sorrow."I have thought that it would bring me lost delights, and splendorAs a wind out of old time . . .But there is only the evening here,And the sound of willowsNow and again dipping their long oval leaves in the water.-- from "Betrothed”

“You have put your two hands upon me, and your mouth,You have said my name as a prayer.Here where trees are planted by waterI have watched your eyes, cleansed from regret,And your lips, closed over all that love cannot say.”

“...in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.”

“Goodbye, goodbye!There was so much to love, I could not love it all;I could not love it enough.”

“I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around.”