The heart grows weary after a little Of what it loved for a little while.

And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea.

And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you all through my life?-sharing my fire, my bed, Sharing-oh, worst of all things!-the same head?- And, when I feed myself, feeding you too?

[on going to Sunday school:] It looks like rain, and I hope it will rain cats and dogs and hammers and pitchforks and silver sugar spoons and hay ricks and paper-covered novels and picture frames and rag carpets and toothpicks and skating rinks and birds of paradise and roof gardens and burdocks and French grammars before Sunday school time.

Beautiful as a dandelion-blossom, golden in the green grass, This life can be. Common as a dandelion-blossom, beautiful in the clean grass, not beautiful Because common, beautiful because beautiful, Noble because common, because free.

I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year, Ere I forget, or die, or move away, And we are done forever; by and by I shall forget you, as I said, but now, If you entreat me with your loveliest lie I will protest you with my favorite vow. I would indeed that love were longer-lived, And vows were not so brittle as they are, But so it is, and nature has contrived To struggle on without a break thus far,-- Whether or not we find what we are seeking Is idle, biologically speaking.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!