“So mourn'd the dame of Ephesus her love,
And thus the soldier arm'd with resolution
Told his soft tale, and was a thriving wooer.”

“Thus man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.”

“She fell as falls the rose in spring,
The fairest are ever most perishing,
Yet lingers that tale of sorrow and love,
Of the Christian maid and her Moslem love;
A tale to be told in the twilight hour,
For the beauty's tears in her lonely bower.”

“Love's arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope,
And Hope kiss'd Love, and Love drew in her breath
In that close kiss and drank her whisper'd tales.
They said that Love would die when Hope was gone.
And Love mourn'd long, and sorrow'd after Hope;
At last she sought out Memory, and they trod
The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope,
And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears.”

“Pall on her temper, like a twice-told tale.”

“I've told her a fairy tale that she doesn't remember. I have written hundreds of poems that could not touch her feelings. To her I was not a poet. To her I was not a good writer. I was not the right person for her to love.”

“Let those whose Hearts and Hands are strong
Tell eager Tales of mighty Deeds;
Enough if my sequestered song
To hush'd and twilight Gardens leads!

Clear Waters, drawn from secret Wells
Perchance may fevered Lips assuage;
The Tales an elder Pilgrim tells
To such as go on Pilgrimage.

Such the soft Path my Words would trace,
Thus with the moving Waters move;
So leave, across the Ocean's Face,
A glimmering Stair to Hope and Love.”

“Why cover the same ground again?… It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly.”

“Dries his wet face with her soft hair.”
Umida siccat mollibus ora comis.

“That day the youth was told the tale,
How she had pined beneath the veil
And died, and then they show'd her grave—
He knew that cypress's green wave. —
That night, alone, he watched his bride —
The next they laid him by her side.”