The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics?

How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?

Love comes in at the eye.

What were all the world's alarms To mighty Paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen's arms?

Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red flare again.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say. Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day; The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.