“... Such a scribe you pay and praise for putting life in stones,Fire into fog, making the past your world.There's plenty of 'How did you contrive to graspThe thread which led you through this labyrinth?How build such solid fabric out of air?How on so slight foundation found this tale,Biography, narrative?' or, in other words,How many lies did it require to makeThe portly truth you here present us with?”

“O Life,How oft we throw it off and think, — 'Enough,Enough of life in so much! — here's a causeFor rupture; — herein we must break with Life,Or be ourselves unworthy; here we are wronged,Maimed, spoiled for aspiration: farewell Life!'— And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyesAnd think all ended. — Then, Life calls to usIn some transformed, apocryphal, new voice,Above us, or below us, or around . .Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's,Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamedTo own our compensations than our griefs:Still, Life's voice! — still, we make our peace with Life.”

“Books, books, books!I had found the secret of a garret roomPiled high with cases in my father’s name;Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and outAmong the giant fossils of my past,Like some small nimble mouse between the ribsOf a mastodon, I nibbled here and thereAt this or that box, pulling through the gap,In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,The first book first. And how I felt it beatUnder my pillow, in the morning’s dark,An hour before the sun would let me read!My books!”

“Out of your whole life give but a moment!All of your life that has gone before,All to come after it, -so you ignore,So you make perfect the present, condense,In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment,Thought and feeling and soul and sense. ”

“OF writing many books there is no end;And I who have written much in prose and verseFor others' uses, will write now for mine,-Will write my story for my better self,As when you paint your portrait for a friend,Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at itLong after he has ceased to love you, justTo hold together what he was and is.”

“You were made perfectly to be loved and surely I have loved you in the idea of you my whole life long. ”

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of being and ideal grace.I love thee to the level of every day'sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.I love thee freely, as men strive for right.I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.”