Life in itself / Is nothing, / An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. / It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, / April / Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Pour away despair and rinse the cup. Eat happiness like bread.

To a Young Poet Time cannot break the bird's wing from the bird. Bird and wing together Go down, one feather. No thing that ever flew, Not the lark, not you, Can die as others do.

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

I love humanity but I hate people.

I drank at every vine, the last was like the first. I came upon no wine so wonderful as thirst.

The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief or grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,—it must have been Very pretty.