My soul is like this cloudy, flaming opal ring.

A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.

Here in a little lonely room I am master of earth and sea, And the planets come to me.

Sweet, can I sing you the song of your kisses? How soft is this one, how subtle this is, How fluttering swift as a bird's kiss that is, As a bird that taps at a leafy lattice; How this one clings and how that uncloses From bud to flower in the way of roses.

Criticism is properly the rod of divination: a hazel switch for the discovery of buried treasure, not a birch twig for the castigation of offenders.

And I would have, now love is over, An end to all, an end: I cannot, having been your lover Stoop to become your friend!

My soul is like this cloudy, flaming opal ring.