“I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above; those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.”

“An Irish Airman foresees his DeathI Know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love, My country is Kiltartan Cross,My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath,A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.”

“WINE comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and sigh.”

“Never shall a young man,Thrown into despairBy those great honey-colouredRamparts at your ear,Love you for yourself aloneAnd not your yellow hair.”

“As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.”

“And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;...”

“. Sometimes, but only for a moment, I saw a faint solitaryfigure with a Rosa veiled face, and carrying a faint torch, flit among the dancers, but like a dream within adream, like a shadow of a shadow, and I knew by an understanding born from a deeper fountain than thought,that it was Eros himself, and that his face was veiled because no man or woman from the beginning of theworld has ever known what love is, or looked into his eyes, for Eros alone of divinities is altogether a spirit,and hides in passions not of his essence if he would commune with a mortal heart. So that if a man love noblyhe knows love through infinite pity, unspeakable trust, unending sympathy; and if ignobly through vehementjealousy, sudden hatred, and unappeasable desire; but unveiled love he never knows.”