The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate with green the Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of Her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.

I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.

No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.

The gas-cylinders had by this time been put into position on the front line. A special order came round imposing severe penalties on anyone who used any word but "accessory" in speaking of the gas. This was to keep it secret, but the French civilians knew all about the scheme long before this.

Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.