“I talk of love, a scholar's parrot may talk greek, but, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.”

“All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.I never had a selfless thought since I was born.I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.I see the chasm. And everything you are was makingMy heart into a bridge by which I might get backFrom exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The painsYou give me are more precious than all other gains.”

“Song of MyselfI have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now, And will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”

“We talked and talked and talked. Maybe love comes in at the eyes, but not nearly as much as it comes in at the ears, at least in my experience. As we talked, lights flicked on inside my head; by the end of the night I was a planterium.”

“In the end, I think that I will like that we were sitting on the bed, talking & wondering where the time had gone.”

“And the end and the beginning where always there, before the beginning and after the end.”