God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in it.

The Holy Night We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem; The dumb kine from their fodder turning them, Softened their horned faces To almost human gazes Toward the newly Born: The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks Brought visionary looks, As yet in their astonied hearing rung The strange sweet angel-tongue: The magi of the East, in sandals worn, Knelt reverent, sweeping round, With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground, The incense, myrrh, and gold These baby hands were impotent to hold: So let all earthlies and celestials wait Upon thy royal state. Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work.

I would confide to you perhaps my secret profession of faith - which is ... which is ... that let us say and do what we please and can ... there is a natural inferiority of mind in women - of the intellect ... not by any means, of the moral nature - and that the history of Art and of genius testifies to this fact openly.

Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. Yet love me--wilt thou? Open thine heart wide, And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

There, that is our secret: go to sleep! You will wake, and remember, and understand.

For frequent tears have run; The colours from my life.