“How fortunate, both at once!
If my songs have any power, the day will never dawn
that wipes you from the memory of the ages, not while
the house of Aeneas stands by the Capitol's rock unshaken,
not while the Roman Father rules the world.”

“And your own life while it's happening to you never has any atmosphere until it's a memory.”

“I am my father's father,
You are your children's guilt.

In history's pity and terror
The child is Aeneas again;

Troy is in the nursery,
The rocking horse is on fire.

Child labor! The child must carry
His fathers on his back.”

“Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy.”

“"Cuckoo!"
"Cuckoo!"
While I meditated
on that theme
day dawned.”

“I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument
while the song I came to sing remains unsung.”

“Yes; for, while memory languidly is fetching
Her treasures from the depths which they have lain among,
A fragile hand — how thin — how weak — is sadly sketching
Figures and fancies that cell's white walls along.
On the lip there is a murmur —
It is the swan's last song.”

“At dawn, a railwaywoman
On a country platform whirls on the end of a chain
An irrelevant key, while a young guard makes to wipe
A crumb from her lapel; and see, she smiles
A permissory smile you take in from your corner seat:
A cameo of unrehearsed perfection.”

“She seems to have had the ability to stand firmly on the rock of her past while living completely and unregretfully in the present.”

“The advent of truth, like the dawn of day, agitates the elements, while it disperses the gloom.”