“The dove descending breaks the airWith flame of incandescent terrorOf which the tongues declareThe one discharge from sin and error.The only hope, or else despairLies in the choice of pyre or pyre-To be redeemed from fire by fire. Who then devised the torment? Love.Love is the unfamiliar NameBehind the hands that woveThe intolerable shirt of flameWhich human power cannot remove.We only live, only suspireConsumed by either fire or fire.”

“the communication/of the dead is tongued with fire beyond/the language of the living"--The Little Gidding”

“Quick now, here, now, always-A condition of complete simplicity(Costing not less than everything)And all shall be well andAll manner of thing shall be wellWhen the tongues of flame are in-foldedInto the crowned knot of fireAnd the fire and the rose are one.”

“Forgive us, O Lord, we acknowledge ourselves as type of the common man,Of the men and women who shut the door and sit by the fire;Who fear the blessing of God, the loneliness of the night of God, the surrender required, the deprivation inflicted;Who fear the injustice of men less than the justice of God;Who fear the hand at the window, the fire in the thatch, the fist in the tavern, the push into the canal,Less than we fear the love of God.”

“Because I know that time is time and place is always and only place and what is actual is actual only for one time and only for one place, I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed faces and renounce the voice because I cannot hope to turn again.”

“Fading, fading: strength beyond hope and despair climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only.”

“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.”