“Take that singing bird away!
It has too glad a lay
For an ear so lorn as mine!
And its wings are all too light,
And its feathers all too bright,
To rest in a bosom like mine!”

“And for tired eyes every light is too bright, and for tired lips every breath too heavy, and for tired ears every word too much.”

“That's how it is sometimes--
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you're just too tired to open it.”

“When the bird of the heart begins to sing, too often will reason stop up her ears.”

“Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.”

“Youth is too eager, forth it flings
Itself upon exulting wings,
Which seek the heaven they ask too near—
One wild flight ends the bright career;
With broken wing and darkened eye,
Earth claims again its own to die.”

“In the meantime, to all suits, to all entreaties, to all letters, to all tricks, I will be deaf as an adder, blind as a beetle, lay mine ear to the ground, and lock mine eyes i' my hand against all temptations.”

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”

“O'er all the hilltops
Is quiet now,
In all the treetops
Hearest thou
Hardly a breath;
The birds are asleep in the trees:
Wait; soon like these
Thou too shalt rest.”

“Be a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.”