“I'm...like a poet hiddenIn the light of thought Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.”

“To be a poet in a destitute time means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods. This is why the poet in the time of the world's night utters the holy.”

“Jews wait for the Lord, Protestants sing hymns to him, Catholics say mass and eat him.”

“...fact takes no heed of human hopes.”

“on the morning of the best day of her life, Maude Flynn was locked in the outhouse singing 'the Battle Hymn of the Republic”

“It is natural to speak of hymns as "poems," indiscriminately, for they have the same structure. But a hymn is not necessarily a poem, while a poem that can be sung as a hymn is something more than a poem. Imagination makes poems; devotion makes hymns. There can be poetry without emotion, but a hymn never. A poem may argue; a hymn must not. In short to be a hymn, what is written must express spiritual feelings and desires. The music of faith, hope and charity will be somewhere in its strain.”