“The tender Evenlode that makes
Her meadows hush to hear the sound
Of waters mingling in the brakes,
And binds my heart to English ground.A lovely river, all alone,
She lingers in the hills and holds
A hundred little towns of stone,
Forgotten in the western wolds.”

“Americans are everywhere very decent, magnificent and ignorant.  They are generous and lovable; they hog the earth and blight the land.  In every hill and holler, highland, forest, meadow and plain they will continue to mingle and to learn, by intelligent transition or headlong catastrophe, to bind their lives to the resources of the land.”

“She sat still, trying to hush her secret heart.”

“She was truly a beautiful girl. I could feel a small polished stone sinking through the darkest waters of my heart. All those deep convoluted channels and passageways, and yet she managed to toss her pebble right down to the bottom of it all.”

“If I were the rain… that binds together the Earth and the sky, whom in all eternity will never mingle… Would I be able to bind two hearts together?”

“Yeah I love my baby, heart and soul
Love like ours won't never grow old
She's my sweet little thang, she's my pride and joy
She's my sweet little baby, I'm her little lover boy”

“You really love her don't you," she said.
With all my heart."
She looked as sad as I'd ever seen her.
What's your heart telling you to do?"
I don't know."
Maybe", she said gently,"You're trying to hard to hear it.”

“mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:
The grasshopper is silent in the grass:
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the winds are dead.
The purple flower droops: the golden bee
Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.”

“Bring you down, can't bring you down
Bring you down, can't hear the sound
Run through the river and head to town
Pretty little moon with it's head hung down
Chin up. Cheer up.”

“She rarely saw priest—and knowing her heart sinned, was glad of that. Dreary was a church after the woodlands and hills and sounding sea. She still loved God—and was not the earth His work, and a church only man’s?—but she could not bring herself to call on Him very often.”