All Books Are Either Dreams Or Swords,

I Ask But One Thing Of You, Only One, That Always You Will Be My Dream Of You; That Never Shall I Wake To Find Untrue All This I Have Believed And Rested On, Forever Vanished, Like A Vision Gone Out Into The Night. Alas, How Few There Are Who Strike In Us A Chord We Knew Existed, But So Seldom Heard Its Tone We Tremble At The Half-forgotten Sound. The World Is Full Of Rude Awakenings And Heaven-born Castles Shattered To The Ground, Yet Still Our Human Longing Vainly Clings To A Belief In Beauty Through All Wrongs. O Stay Your Hand, And Leave My Heart Its Songs!

Happiness: We Rarely Feel It. I Would Buy It, Beg It, Steal It, Pay In Coins Of Dripping Blood For This One Transcendent Good.

I Must Be Mad, Or Very Tired, When The Curve Of A Blue Bay Beyond A Railroad Track Is Shrill And Sweet To Me Like The Sudden Springing Of A Tune, And The Sight Of A White Church Above Thin Trees In A City Square Amazes My Eyes As Though It Were The Parthenon.

Brighter Than Fireflies Upon The Uji River Are Your Words In The Dark, Beloved.

I Do Not Suppose That Anyone Not A Poet Can Realize The Agony Of Creating A Poem. Every Nerve, Even Every Muscle, Seems Strained To The Breaking Point. The Poem Will Not Be Denied; To Refuse To Write It Would Be A Greater Torture. It Tears Its Way Out Of The Brain, Splintering And Breaking Its Passage, And Leaves That Organ In The State Of A Jelly-fish When The Task Is Done.