I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.

Nothing that we love overmuch Is ponderable to our touch.

For how can you compete Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbour's eyes?

The winds that awakened the stars Are blowing through my blood.

Hearts are not had as a gift, But hearts are earned.

A symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame; while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not to imagination: the one is a revelation, the other an amusement.

The mystical life is at the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.