“Why should we celebrateThese dead men more than the dying?It is not to ring the bell backwardNor is it an incantationTo summon the spectre of a Rose.We cannot revive old factionsWe cannot restore old policiesOr follow an antique drum.These men, and those who opposed themAnd those whom they opposedAccept the constitution of silenceAnd are folded in a single party.Whatever we inherit from the fortunateWe have taken from the defeatedWhat they had to leave us - a symbol:A symbol perfected in death.”
“No place of grace for those who avoid the faceNo time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice”
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these.”
“We wait, we wait,And the saints and martyrs wait, for those who shall be martyrs and saints.Destiny waits in the hand of God, shaping the still unshapen:I have seen these things in a shaft of sunlight.Destiny waits in the hand of God, not in the hands of statesmenWho do, some well, some ill, planning and guessing,Having their aims which turn in their hands in the pattern of time.”
“Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,And in short, I was afraid. ”