"And so it ends, We who were lovers may be friends. I have some weeks in which to steel My heart and teach myself to feel Only a sober tenderness Where once was passion's loveliness."

"You took me weak and unprepared. I had not thought that you who shared My days, my nights, my heart, my life, Would slash me with a naked knife And gently tell me not to bleed But to accept your crazy creed."

"Remembrance clamoured in him: 'She was wild and free, Magnificent in giving; she was blind To gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me, — but me!"

"It is quite true that you have had infinitely more influence on me intellectually than anyone, and for this alone I love you."

"It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this — But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it."

"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? for the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind; how the observation of last year seems childish, superficial; how this year — even this week — even with this new phrase — it seems to us that we have grown to a new maturity. It may be a fallacious persuasion, but at least it is stimulating, and so long as it persists, one does not stagnate. I look back as through a telescope, and see, in the little bright circle of the glass, moving flocks and ruined cities."

"She walks among the loveliness she made, Between the apple-blossom and the water— She walks among the patterned pied brocade, Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter."

"If I had only loved your flesh And careless damned your soul to Hell, I might have laughed and loved afresh, And loved as lightly and as well, And little more to tell."

"All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn, Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn Where she was wont to roam."

"Her appearance was indeed remarkable — strange almost beyond the reach of adjectives … She resembled a puissant blend of both sexes — Lady Chatterley and her lover rolled into one."

"It was a real event in my life and my heart to be with you the other day. We do matter to each other, don't we? however much our ways may have diverged. I think we have got something indestructible between us, haven't we? … It has been a very strange relationship, ours; unhappy at times, happy at others; but unique in its way, and infinitely precious to me and (may I say?) to you. What I like about it is that we always come together again however long the gaps in our meetings may have been. Time seems to make no difference."

"Instantly the usual exciting devices enter my mind: a biography beginning in the year 1500 & continuing to the present day, called Orlando: Vita; only with a change about from one sex to the other."

"Who could so watch, and not forget the rack Of wills worn thin and thought become too frail, Nor roll the centuries back — And feel the sinews of his soul grow hale, And know himself for Rome's inheritor?"

"Of course I have no right whatsoever to write down the truth about my life involving as it naturally does the lives of so many other people, but I do so urged by a necessity of truth-telling, because there is no living soul who knows the complete truth; here, may be one who knows a section; and there, one who knows another section: but to the whole picture not one is initiated."

"A man and his tools make a man and his trade."

"A man and his land make a man and his creed."

"Women, like men, ought to have their years so glutted with freedom that they hate the very idea of freedom."

"Cupid has offered his arrows for Jesus to try; He has offered his bow for the game. But Jesus went weeping away, and left him there wondering why."

"The children eat and wriggle and laugh, The two old ladies stroke their silk; But the cat is grown small and thin with desire, Transformed to a creeping lust for milk."

"His poetry, as a whole, is more nearly the real right thing than any of the poetry of a somewhat older generation than mine except Mr. Yeats's."

"A man and his loves make a man and his life."

"God loves an idle rainbow, Not less than labouring seas."

"Hodgson, a man of steadfast integrity and strong personality, possessed true distinction."

"'...one of those men who seem commonplace when first met but then prove to be completely original both in their work and their lives... Apparently slight and unpretentious, his work has a queer magic, which is what I want from poetry."

"I saw with open eyes, Singing birds sweet, Sold in the shops, For the people to eat, Sold in the shops of, Stupidity Street."

"The dusk is heavy with the wine's warm load; Here the long sense of classic measure cures The spirit weary of its difficult pain; Here the old Bacchic piety endures, Here the sweet legends of the world remain."

"'Twould ring the bells of Heaven The wildest peal for years, If Parson lost his senses And people came to theirs, And he and they together Knelt down with angry prayers For tamed and shabby tigers And dancing dogs and bears, And wretched, blind, pit ponies, And little hunted hares."

"Reason has moons, but moons not hers Lie mirror'd on her sea, Confounding her astronomers, But, O! delighting me."

"O cool glad pasture; living tree, tall corn, Great cliff, or languid sloping sand, cold sea, Waves: river curving; you, eternal flowers, Give me content, while I can think of you: Give me your living breath! Back to your rampart, Death!"

"Time, you old gipsy man, Will you not stay, Put up your caravan Just for one day?"

"As well as any bloom upon a flower I like the dust on the nettles, never lost Except to prove the sweetness of a shower."

"I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds, Sniff them and think and sniff again and try Once more to think what it is I am remembering, Always in vain. I cannot like the scent, Yet I would rather give up others more sweet, With no meaning, than this bitter one."

"The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet."

"Far more I feared all company: too sharp, too rude, Had been the wisest or the dearest human voice. What I desired I knew not, but whate'er my choice Vain it must be, I knew."

"The simple lack Of her is more to me Than others' presence."

"To envy a man is to misunderstand him or yourself."

"There is nothing at the end of any road better than may be found beside it."

"If I should ever by chance grow rich I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch, Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater, And let them all to my eldest daughter."

"I read Edward Thomas for a breath of air."

"I like to think how easily Nature will absorb London as she absorbed the mastodon, setting her spiders to spin the winding-sheet and her worms to fill in the grave, and her grass to cover it pitifully up, adding flowers—as an unknown hand added them to the grave of Nero."

"I built myself a house of glass: It took me years to make it: And I was proud. But now, alas! Would God someone would break it."

"Yes. I remember Adlestrop – The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June."

"The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood This Eastertide call into mind the men, Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should Have gathered them and will do never again."

"I thank the goodness and the grace Which on my birth have smiled, And made me in these Christian days, A happy English child."

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are, Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky!"

"Though man a thinking being is defined, Few use the grand prerogative of mind. How few think justly of the thinking few! How many never think, who think they do!"

"Far from mortal cares retreating, Sordid hopes and vain desires, Here, our willing footsteps meeting, Every heart to heaven aspires."

"Sea that breakest for ever, that breakest and never art broken."

"Braying of arrogant brass, whimper of querulous reeds."