It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound-that he will never get over it.

There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's a wife who can't cook and will.

The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.

Far more violence has been done in obeying the law than in breaking the law.

A breeze discovered my open book And began to flutter the leaves to look

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound By countless silken ties of love and thought To everything on earth the compass round, And only by one's going slightly taut In the capriciousness of summer air Is of the slightest bondage made aware.