If a poem hasn't ripped apart your soul; you haven't experienced poetry.

Out- out are the lights- out all! And, over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm, While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, "Man," And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

I have made no money. I am as poor now as ever I was in my life - except in hope, which is by no means bankable.

There is no beauty without some strangeness

And all I loved, I loved alone.

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?