"I am an old man With my bones very brittle, Though I am a poor old man Worth very little, Yet I suck at my long pipe At peace in the sun, I do not fret nor much regret That my work is done."

"New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return."

"Let Cupid smile and the fiend must flee; Hey and hither, my lad."

"With a fork drive Nature out, She will ever yet return; Hedge the flowerbed all about, Pull or stab or cut or burn, She will ever yet return."

"I do not love the Sabbath, The soapsuds and the starch, The troops of solemn people Who to Salvation march. I take my book, I take my stick On the Sabbath day, In woody nooks and valleys I hide myself away. To ponder there in quiet God's Universal Plan, Resolved that church and Sabbath Were never made for man."

"Every fairy child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild — I'd love to be a Fairy's child."

"Another War soon gets begun, A dirtier, a more glorious one; Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in; It's the cruellest team will win. So hold your nose against the stink And never stop too long to think. Wars don't change except in name; The next one must go just the same, And new foul tricks unguessed before Will win and justify this War."

"Now I begin to know at last, These nights when I sit down to rhyme, The form and measure of that vast God we call Poetry, he who stoops And leaps me through his paper hoops A little higher every time."

"Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony..."

"Through the window I can see Rooks above the cherry-tree, Sparrows in the violet bed, Bramble-bush and bumble-bee, And old red bracken smoulders still Among boulders on the hill, Far too bright to seem quite dead. But old Death, who can't forget, Waits his time and watches yet, Waits and watches by the door."

"When I'm killed, don't think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there's one thing that I know well, I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell!"

"Poet, never chase the dream. Laugh yourself and turn away. Mask your hunger, let it seem Small matter if he come or stay; But when he nestles in your hand at last, Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast."

"So when I'm killed, don't wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You'll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you've read."

"Robin, and Red Riding Hood Take together to the wood, And Sir Galahad lies hid In a cave with Captain Kidd. None of all the magic hosts, None remain but a few ghosts Of timorous heart, to linger on Weeping for lost Babylon."

"He is older than the seas, Older than the plains and hills, And older than the light that spills From the sun's hot wheel on these. He wakes the gale that tears your trees, He sings to you from window sills."

"When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much."

"Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart's desire..."

"The holiest, cruellest pains I feel, Die stillborn, because old men squeal For something new: "Write something new: We've read this poem — that one too, And twelve more like 'em yesterday"?"

"It doesn't matter what's the cause, What wrong they say we're righting, A curse for treaties, bonds and laws, When we're to do the fighting!"

"Take courage, lover! Could you endure such pain At any hand but hers?"

"Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray, And so decide who started This bloody war, and who's to pay, But he must be stout-hearted, Must sit and stake with quiet breath, Playing at cards with Death. Don't plume yourself he fights for you; It is no courage, love, or hate, But let us do the things we do; It's pride that makes the heart be great; It is not anger, no, nor fear — Lucasta he's a Fusilier, And his pride keeps him here."

"All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean — In scorn of which we sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom we desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo."

"But we are gifted, even in November, Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall."

"The child alone a poet is: Spring and Fairyland are his. Truth and Reason show but dim, And all's poetry with him."

"Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason."

"Water to water, ark again to ark, From woman back to woman: So each new victim treads unfalteringly The never altered circuit of his fate, Bringing twelve peers as witness Both to this starry rise and starry fall."

"She in left hand bears a leafy quince; When with her right she crooks a finger, smiling, How may the King hold back? Royally then he barters life for love."

"Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup: Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward. The log groans and confesses There is one story and one story only."

"There is one story and one story only That will prove worth your telling, Whether as learned bard or gifted child; To it all lines or lesser guards belong That startle with their shining Such common stories as they stray into."

"Wisdom made him old and wary Banishing the Lords of Faery. Wisdom made a breach and battered Babylon to bits: she scattered To the hedges and ditches All our nursery gnomes and witches."

"Riding on the shell and shot. He smites you down, he succours you, And where you seek him, he is not."

"Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon."

"Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling, Do not forget what flowers The great boar trampled down in ivy time. Her brow was creamy as the crested wave, Her sea-blue eyes were wild But nothing promised that is not performed."

"One, two and many: flesh had made him blind, Flesh had one pleasure only in the act, Flesh set one purpose only in the mind — Triumph of flesh and afterwards to find Still those same terrors wherewith flesh was racked."

"His wiles were witty and his fame far known, Every king's daughter sought him for her own, Yet he was nothing to be won or lost. All lands to him were Ithaca: love-tossed He loathed the fraud, yet would not bed alone."

"They multiplied into the Sirens' throng, Forewarned by fear of whom he stood bound fast Hand and foot helpless to the vessel's mast, Yet would not stop his ears: daring their song He groaned and sweated till that shore was past."

"Sigh then, or frown, but leave (as in despair) Motive and end and moral in the air; Nice contradiction between fact and fact Will make the whole read human and exact."

"Children, if you dare to think Of the greatness, rareness, muchness, Fewness of this precious only Endless world in which you say You live, you think of things like this: Blocks of slate enclosing dappled Red and green, enclosing tawny Yellow nets, enclosing white And black acres of dominoes, Where a neat brown paper parcel Tempts you to untie the string."

"Down, wanton, down! Have you no shame That at the whisper of Love’s name, Or Beauty’s, presto! up you raise Your angry head and stand at gaze?"

"Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes."

"To the much-tossed Ulysses, never done With woman whether gowned as wife or whore, Penelope and Circe seemed as one: She like a whore made his lewd fancies run, And wifely she a hero to him bore."

"His eyes are quickened so with grief, He can watch a grass or leaf Every instant grow; he can Clearly through a flint wall see, Or watch the startled spirit flee From the throat of a dead man."

"There’s a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility."

"Christ of His gentleness Thirsting and hungering, Walked in the wilderness; Soft words of grace He spoke Unto lost desert-folk That listened wondering."

"As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever."

"If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of a man who desrves them."

"Be warm, enjoy the season, lift your head, Exquisite in the pulse of tainted blood, That shivering glory not to be despised. Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark — a shining space With the grave’s narrowness, though not its peace."

"What, then, was war? No mere discord of flags But an infection of the common sky That sagged ominously upon the earth."

"Trench stinks of shallow buried dead Where Tom stands at the periscope, Tired out. After nine months he’s shed All fear, all faith, all hate, all hope."

"The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good — in spite of all the people who say he is very good."