"Cold, delicately as the dark snow, A fox's nose touches twig, leaf; Two eyes serve a movement, that now And again now, and now, and now Sets neat prints into the snow."

"However rootedly national it may be, poetry is less and less the prisoner of its own language. It is beginning to represent as an ambassador, something far greater than itself. Or perhaps, it is only now being heard for what, among other thngs, it is — a universal language of understanding, coherent behind the many languages in which we can all hope to meet. … We now give more serious weight to the words of a country's poets than to the words of its politicians — though we know the latter may interfere more drastically with our lives. Religions, ideologies, mercantile competition divide us. The essential solidarity of the very diverse poets of the world, besides being mysterious fact is one we can be thankful for, since its terms are exclusively those of love, understanding and patience. It is one of the few spontaneous guarantees of possible unity that mankind can show, and the revival of an appetite for poetry is like a revival of an appetite for all man's saner possibilities, and a revulsion from the materialist cataclysms of recent years and the worse ones which the difference of nations threatens for the years ahead. The idea of global unity is not new, but the absolute necessity of it has only just arrived, like a sudden radical alteration of the sun, and we shall have to adapt or disappear. If the nations are ever to make a working synthesis of their ferocious contradictions, the plan will be created in spirit before it can be formulated or accepted in political fact. And it is in poetry that we can refresh our hope that such a unity is occupying people's imaginations everywhere, since poetry is the voice of spirit and imagination and all that is potential, as well as of the healing benevolence that used to be the privilege of the gods."

"At the dawn I seek Thee, Refuge, Rock sublime; Set my prayer before thee in the morning, And my prayer at eventime."

"Ours it is to bear the Sabbath in our souls."

"Surely a limit boundet every woe, But mine enduring anguish hath no end"

"I suppose that I am a very serious poet – except for satirical verse, which I have also been compelled to write, though much of it may be inferior to my more serious poems – perhaps because I am not playful enough by nature, and even my satirical or polemical verse is not entertaining."

"He was out of tune with what a younger generation of poets were writing, and railed against the shallowness and commercialisation of the modern world, from his fastness: a farmhouse surrounded by orchards in Middleton, Suffolk."

"Obituary in The Guardian"

"Translation came naturally to me because as a child I was translated from Germany to Britain."

"Being pre-eminently a moralist, he needed a medium that enabled him to illustrate a moral insight as briefly and vividly as possible. Being an artist and sensualist, he needed a medium that was epigrammatic or aphoristic, but allowed him scope for fantasy and for that element of suggestiveness which he considered essential to beauty."

"It is impossible for a poet to characterize his own work. From other people I gather that I am a gloomy poet, if not a tragic one."

"I was invited to Romania at least once, but was warned that I should not be free to travel where I pleased in the country, but should be more or less confined to the Writers' Union. Because I ceased long ago to be an urban poet and feel claustrophobic in literary conferences, I could not accept such an invitation."

"The ploughman ploughs, the fisherman dreams of fish; Aloft, the sailor, through a world of ropes Guides tangled meditations, feverish With memories of girls forsaken, hopes Of brief reunions, new discoveries, Past rum consumed, rum promised, rum potential."

"In images of horror, and in a certain terrible greatness, our author comes far behind Chaucer. Whether they were not suited to the genius or the temper of Lydgate, I do not determine; but it is certain that, though they naturally seemed to present themselves, he has almost generally chose to avoid them: yet is there frequently a stiller kind of majesty both in his thought and expression, which makes one of his principal beauties."

"Comparable with Chawcer, yet more occupyed in supersticious and odde matters than was requesite in so good a wytte."

"He is the first of our writers whose style is cloathed with that perspicuity, in which the English phraseology appears at this day to an English reader…Whether his subject be the life of a hermit or a hero, of saint Austin or Guy earl of Warwick, ludicrous or legendary, religious or romantic, a history or an allegory, he writes with facility."

"A voluminous, prosaick, and drivelling Monk."

"Also Johnn Lydgate Wryteth after an hyer rate; It is dyffuse to fynde The sentence of his mynde, Yet wryteth he in his kynd, No man that can amend Those maters that he hath pende; Yet some men fynde a faute, And say he wryteth too haute."

"For a story which is nat pleynli told, But constreynyd undir woordes fewe For lak off trouthe, wher thei be newe or olde, Men bi report kan nat the mater shewe."

"Off oure language he was the lodesterre."

"There is no rose Spryngyng in gardeyns, but ther be sum thorn."

"Trouthe wil out maugre of fals enuye, Rihtwysnesse may nat ben hid certeyn, As for a tyme it may been ovirleyn."

"He as a kyng is crowned in Fairie, With sceptre and suerd, & with his regalie Shal resorte as lord and souereyne, Out of Fairye & regne in Breteyne, And repaire ageyn the Rounde Table."

"For he owre englishe gilte with his sawes, Rude and boistous firste be olde dawes, That was ful fer from al perfeccioun And but of litel reputacioun Til that he cam, and thorugh his poetrie, Gan oure tonge firste to magnifie And adourne it with his eloquence: To whom honour, laude and reuerence."

"Odyous of olde been comparisonis."

"For princis ofte, of furious hastynesse, Wil cachche a quarrel, causeless in sentence, Ageyn folk absent, thouh ther be non offence."

"Harde to likke hony out of a marbil stoon, For ther is nouthir licour nor moisture."

"The wheel of Fortune tourneth as a ball; Sodeyn clymbyng axeth a sodeyn fall."

"Who lesethe his fredam, in faith! he loseth all."

"A prowde hert in a beggers brest, A fowle visage with gay temples of atyre, Horrible othes with an holy prist, A justice of juges to selle and lete to hyre, A knave to comande and have an empire, To yeve a jugement of that never was wrought, To preche of pees and sette eche man on fyre, It may wele ryme but it accordith nought."

"All is not golde that outward shewith bright."

"A wikked tonge wol alway deme amis."

"Woord is but wynd; leff woord and tak the dede."

"For love is mor than gold or gret richesse; Gold faileth ofte; love wol abyde."

"For hit ys oft seyde by hem that yet lyues He must nedys go that the deuell dryues."

"My son – and what's a son? A thing begot Within a pair of minutes, thereabout: A lump bred up in darkness."

"For what's a play without a woman in it?"

"Duly twice a morning Would I be sprinkling it with fountain-water. At last it grew, and grew, and bore, and bore, Till at the length It grew a gallows, and did bear our son, It bore thy fruit and mine: O wicked, wicked plant."

"As I am never better than when I am mad; then methinks I am a brave fellow; then I do wonders: but reason abuseth me, and there's the torment, there's the hell."

"Where words prevail not, violence prevails; But gold doth more than either of them both."

"What outcries pluck me from my naked bed And chill my throbbing heart with trembling fear."

"Evil news fly faster still than good."

"In time the savage bull sustains the yoke, In time all haggard hawks will stoop to lure, In time small wedges cleave the hardest oak, In time the flint is pierced with softest shower."

"Oh eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears; Oh life, no life, but lively form of death; Oh world, no world, but mass of public wrongs, Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds."

"Thus must we toil in other men's extremes, That know not how to remedy our own."

"Dost thou think to live till his old doublet will make thee a new truss?"

"Fear God, and take your own part."

"I often think I should like to have another rally—one more rally, and then—but there’s a time for all things—youth will be served, every dog has his day, and mine has been a fine one—let me be content."

"I never saw such a place for merched anllad [wanton women] as Northampton."

"'Scotland! a queer country that, your honour!' 'So it is,' said I; 'a queerer country I never saw in all my life.' 'And a queer set of people, your honour,' 'So they are,' said I; 'a queerer set of people than the Scotch you would scarcely seen in a summer's day.'"