Haunted Gulp down your wine, old friends of mine, Roar through the darkness, stamp and sing And lay ghost hands on everything, But leave the noonday's warm sunshine To living lads for mirth and wine. I met you suddenly down the street, Strangers assume your phantom faces, You grin at me from daylight places, Dead, long dead, I'm ashamed to greet Dead men down the morning street.

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.

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

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

I have done many impious things--no great ruler can do otherwise. I have put the good of the Empire before all human considerations. To keep the Empire free from factions I have had to commit many crimes.

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

I revise the manuscript till I can't read it any longer, then I get somebody to type it. Then I revise the typing. Then it's retyped again. Then there's a third typing, which is the final one. Nothing should then remain that offends the eye.