She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow.

The gift of independence once granted cannot be lightly taken away again.

Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.

As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned.

Mythology is the study of whatever religious or heroic legends are so foreign to a student's experience that he cannot believe them to be true. . . . Myth has two main functions. The first is to answer the sort of awkward questions that children ask, such as: 'Who made the world? How will it end? Who was the first man? Where do souls go after death?'. . . . The second function of myth is to justify an existing social system and account for traditional rites and customs.

One gets to the heart of the matter by a series of experiences in the same pattern, but in different colors.

The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.