My wretched dragon is perplexed.
All the great masters have understood that there cannot be great art without the little limited life of the fable, which is always better the simpler it is, and the rich, far-wandering, many-imaged life of the half-seen world beyond it.
Oh, Love is the crooked thing, there is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it, for he will be thinking about love til the stars run away and the shadows eaten the moon...
I call on those that call me son, Grandson, or great-grandson, On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts, To judge what I have done. Have I, that put it into words, Spoilt what old loins have sent?
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
Florence Farr once said to me, If we could say to ourselves, with sincerity, ‘this passing moment is as good as any I shall ever know,’ we could die upon the instant and be united with God.
The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.
I have grown to believe that there is no dangerous idea, which does not become less dangerous when written out in sincere and careful English.
The living can assist the imagination of the dead...
And a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone.
It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.
I carry from my mother’s womb a fanatic’s heart.
Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red flare again.
There is no deformity But saves us from a dream.
What’s memory but the ash That chokes our fires that have begun to sink?
Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.
Things thought too long can be no longer thought, For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth, And ancient lineaments are blotted out.
Locke sank into a swoon; The Garden died; God took the spinning-jenny Out of his side.
Our words must seem to be inevitable.
The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars!