Love, as is told by the seers of old, Comes as a butterfly tipped with gold, Flutters and flies in sunlit skies, Weaving round hearts that were one time cold.

Heart's ease of pansy, pleasure or thought, Which would the picture give us of these? Surely the heart that conceived it sought Heart's ease.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which.

Today will die tomorrow.

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

I remember the way we parted, The day and the way we met; You hoped we were both broken-hearted And knew we should both forget.

The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog.

A little soul scarce fledged for earth Takes wing with heaven again for goal, Even while we hailed as fresh from birth A little soul.

When the hounds of Spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.

His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.

When I hear that a personal friend has fallen into matrimonial courses, I feel the same sorrow as if I had heard of his lapsing into theism — a holy sorrow, unmixed with anger.

Sadness flies on the wings of the morning, and out of the heart of darkness comes the light.

Don't quote me on that

It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.

Tobacco . . . is not prohibited in the Scriptures, though, as Samuel Butler points out, St. Paul would no doubt have denounced it if he had known of it.

One performer whose band played my music better than I could myself was Art Farmer. He recorded 'Sing Me Softly of the Blues' and 'Ad Infinitum'.

There is beauty, heartbreaking beauty, everywhere.

The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.

In life it is training rather than birth which counts.

No human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption.

I never base characters on real people. There are people who do that but I really don't know how to do it.