It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll; I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

Pointed criticism, if accurate, often gives the artist an inner sense of relief. The criticism that damages is that which disparages, dismisses, ridicules, or condemns.

beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade

The nightingale has a lyre of gold, The lark's is a clarion call, And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute, But I love him best of all. For his song is all the joy of life, And we in the mad spring weather, We two have listened till he sang Our hearts and lips together.

Open your heart and take us in, Love-love and me.

In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud: Under the bludgeoning of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed.

And lo, the Hospital, gray, quiet, old, Where life and death like friendly chafferers meet.