“I want to go out into the country, I want to thread the pale Spring air, and hear the lambs cry. I want to brush my face against the grass, and wade in a wave of bluebells.”
“My love, I see you through my tears.No pity in your face I see.I have sailed far across the years;Stretch out, stretch out your arms to me.”
“London is a friend whom I can leave knowing without doubt that she will be the same to me when I return, to-morrow or forty years hence, and that, if I do not return, she will sing the same song to inheritors of my happy lot in future generations. Always, whether sleeping or waking, I shall know that in Spring the sun rides over the silver streets of Kensington, and that in the Gardens the shorn sheep find very green pasture. Always the plaited threads of traffic will wind about the reel of London; always as you up Regent Street from Pall Mall and look back, Westminster will rise with you like a dim sun over the horizon of Whitehall. That dive down Fleet Street and up to the black and white cliffs of St. Paul's will for ever bring to mind some rumour of romance. There is always a romance that we leave behind in London, and always London enlocks that flower for us, and keeps it fresh, so that when we come back we have our romance again.”
“That sea - that mother of a million summers,Who bore, with melody, a million springs,Shall sing for my enchantment...”
“The hoarse church-bells of London ring;The hoarser horns of London croak;The poor brown lives of London clingAbout the poor brown streets like smoke;The deep air stands above my roofLike water, to the floating stars.My friend and I - we sit aloof -We sit and smile, and bind our scars.”
“And you shall find upon the beachThe traces of my dancing”
“Trees, skies, valleys mountains, seen through the rain-spotted windshield, were like a distorted, stippled landscape painted by a beginner who has not yet learned to wring living colour from his palette.”