“Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreamsAnd our desires.”

“She says, "But in contentment I still feelThe need for imperishable bliss."Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreamsAnd our desires.Is there no change of death in paradise?Does ripe fruit never fall? or do the boughsHang always heavy in that perfect sky,Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,With rivers like our own that seek for seasThey never find, the same receding shoresThat never touch with inarticulate pang?”

“Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.”

“From this the poem springs: that we live in a place That is not our own and, much more, not ourselves And hard it is in spite of blazoned days.”

“They will get it straight one day at the Sorbonne.We shall return at twilight from the lecturePleased that the irrational is rational”

“The Plot Against The GiantFirst GirlWhen this yokel comes maundering,Whetting his hacker,I shall run before him,Diffusing the civilest odorsOut of geraniums and unsmelled flowers.It will check him.Second GirlI shall run before him,Arching cloths besprinkled with colorsAs small as fish-eggs.The threadsWill abash him.Third GirlOh, la...le pauvre!I shall run before him,With a curious puffing.He will bend his ear then.I shall whisperHeavenly labials in a world of gutturals.It will undo him.”

“The imperfect is our paradise.”