“What but design of darkness to appall?- If design govern in a thing so small.”

“When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloudAnd goes down burning into the gulf below,No voice in nature is heard to cry aloudAt what has happened. Birds, at least must knowIt is the change to darkness in the sky.Murmuring something quiet in her breast,One bird begins to close a faded eye;Or overtaken too far from his nest,Hurrying low above the grove, some waifSwoops just in time to his remembered tree.At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!Now let the night be dark for all of me.Let the night be too dark for me to seeInto the future. Let what will be, be.”

“We love the things we love for what they are.”

“Weep for what little things could make them glad.”

“The question that he frames in all but words is what to make of a diminished thing.”

“You're always believing ahead of your evidence. What was the evidence I could write a poem? I just believed it. The most creative thing in us is to believe in a thing.”

“It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage...”