“Fool," said my muse to me. "Look in thy heart and write.”

“Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:"Fool!" said my muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.”

“The world looks very different to me now at twenty. I have outgrown my early opinions and ideals with my short dresses, just as Mrs. Walton said we would. Now the critics can say 'Thou waitest till thy woman's fingers wrought the best that lay within thy woman's heart.”

“Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,That she (dear she) might take some pleasure of my pain;Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know;Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain;Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flowSome fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain.But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;Invention, nature's child, fled step-dame study's blows;And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,'Fool,' said my muse to me; 'look in thy heart, and write.”

“Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger,Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart; Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.”

“I look at you and you look at me anddeep in our hearts know itThat you weren't much of a muse,but then I weren't much of a poet”