All Quotes

"The desolate, deserted trees, The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why."

"Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise."

"I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew — Only more sure of all I thought was true."

"The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows."

"There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground."

"Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?"

"Men work together," I told him from the heart, "Whether they work together or apart."

"Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast."

"My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours.""

"He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke Advancing toward her: "What is it you see From up there always?—for I want to know.""

"She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see, Blind creature; and awhile he didn't see. But at last he murmured, "Oh," and again, "Oh.""

"The little graveyard where my people are! So small the window frames the whole of it."

"He said twice over before he knew himself: "Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?" 'Not you!'—'Oh, where's my hat? Oh, I don't need it! I must get out of here. I must get air.'— I don't know rightly whether any man can.'"

"'My words are nearly always an offense. I don't know how to speak of anything So as to please you. But I might be taught, I should suppose. I can't say I see how.'"

"A man must partly give up being a man With womenfolk. We could have some arrangement By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off Anything special you're a-mind to name. Though I don't like such things 'twixt those that love. Two that don't love can't live together without them. But two that do can't live together with them." She moved the latch a little. "Don't — don't go. Don't carry it to someone else this time. Tell me about it if it's something human. Let me into your grief. I'm not so much Unlike other folks as your standing there Apart would make me out. Give me my chance."

"'I can repeat the very words you were saying: "Three foggy mornings and one rainy day Will rot the best birch fence a man can build." Think of it, talk like that at such a time! What had how long it takes a birch to rot To do with what was in the darkened parlor? You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all."

"I'm going out to clean the pasture spring; I'll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I sha'n't be gone long. — You come too."

"And nothing to look backward to with pride, And nothing to look forward to with hope."

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in."

"The nearest friends can go With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all. No, from the time when one is sick to death, One is alone, and he dies more alone. Friends make pretence of following to the grave, But before one is in it, their minds are turned And making the best of their way back to life And living people, and things they understand."

"Most of the change we think we see in life Is due to truths being in and out of favor."

"I've broken Anne of gathering bouquets. It's not fair to the child. It can't be helped though: Pressed into service means pressed out of shape."

"My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still. And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now."

"Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it's like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep."

"By good rights I ought not to have so much Put on me, but there seems no other way. Len says one steady pull more ought to do it. He says the best way out is always through. And I agree to that, or in so far As that I can see no way out but through — Leastways for me — and then they’ll be convinced."

"I always have felt strange when we came home To the dark house after so long an absence, And the key rattled loudly into place Seemed to warn someone to be getting out At one door as we entered at another."

"To warm the frozen swamp as best it could With the slow smokeless burning of decay."

"I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."

"The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it."

""Don't let him cut my hand off— The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" So. But the hand was gone already."

"Her crop was a miscellany When all was said and done, A little bit of everything, A great deal of none."

"But he sent her Good-by, And said to be good, And wear her red hood, And look for skunk tracks In the snow with an ax — And do everything!"

"Something inspires the only cow of late To make no more of a wall than an open gate, And think no more of wall-builders than fools."

"There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers On sunny days a moment overcast; And comes that other fall we name the fall. He says the highway dust is over all. The bird would cease and be as other birds But that he knows in singing not to sing. The question that he frames in all but words Is what to make of a diminished thing."

"“My dear, It’s who first thought the thought. You’re searching, Joe, For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings—there are no such things. There are only middles."

"I’d like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to go better."

"I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

"I shall set forth for somewhere, I shall make the reckless choice Some day when they are in voice And tossing so as to scare The white clouds over them on. I shall have less to say, But I shall be gone."

"All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms."

"I own any form of humor shows fear and inferiority. Irony is simply a kind of guardedness. So is a twinkle. It keeps the reader from criticism. Whittier, when he shows any style at all is probably a greater person than Longfellow as he is lifted priestlike above consideration of the scornful. Belief is better than anything else, and it is best when rapt, above paying its respects to anybody's doubt whatsoever. At bottom the world isn't a joke. We only joke about it to avoid an issue with someone to let someone know that we know he's there with his questions: to disarm him by seeming to have heard and done justice to this side of the standing argument. Humor is the most engaging cowardice."

"There is no joy but calm!"

"Death is the end of life; ah, why Should life all labour be? Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful past. Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence; ripen, fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease."

"Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind."

"Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more."

"On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And through the field the road runs by To many-towered Camelot."

"Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Through the wave that runs for ever By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot."

"All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather, The helmet and the helmet-feather Burned like one burning flame together, As he rode down to Camelot."

"From the bank and from the river He flashed into the crystal mirror, "Tirra lirra," by the river Sang Sir Lancelot."

"She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces through the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She looked down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror cracked from side to side; "The curse is come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott."

"Lying, robed in snowy white That loosely flew to left and right — The leaves upon her falling light — Thro' the noises of the night, She floated down to Camelot: And as the boat-head wound along The willowy hills and fields among, They heard her singing her last song, The Lady of Shalott.Heard a carol, mournful, holy, Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, Till her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darkened wholly, Turn'd to tower'd Camelot. For ere she reach'd upon the tide The first house by the water-side, Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott."