I am not ashamed that these reproaches can be cast upon us, and
that they can not be repelled.
read more

I am not ashamed that these reproaches can be cast upon us, and
that they can not be repelled.
[Lat., Pudet haec opprobria nobis
Et dici potuisse et non potuisse repelli.]

To banish cares, scare away sorrow and soothe pain is the business of the poet and singer.

To banish cares, scare away sorrow and soothe pain is the business of the poet and singer.

to be nobody-but-myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me everybody else means, read more

to be nobody-but-myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me everybody else means, to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round read more

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already-the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.

It's the things I might have said that fester.

It's the things I might have said that fester.

Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.

Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that read more

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than yesterday.

There is no such thing as happiness, only lesser shades of melancholy.

There is no such thing as happiness, only lesser shades of melancholy.

Don't tell me peace has broken out.

Don't tell me peace has broken out.