Welcome, thou kind deceiver!Thou best of thieves: who, with an easy key,Dost open life, and, unperceived by us,Even steal us from ourselves.

Oh I know it's cliché but yeah they say that great men make it in-To places few others who even do take the risk've ever been

Unless you call attentionto your presencewho will know you're there?Even a countryhas to weave and wave a flagas proof of its existence.

A wealth you cannot imagineflows through you.Do not consider what strangers say.Be secluded in your secret heart-house,that bowl of silence.

Like poetry, in times of intense emotion the image returns to me. Like poetry, it stroked my soul and, by turns, lulled and stoked my senses.

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.

But to go to school in a summer morn,O! It drives all joy away;Under a cruel eye outworn,The little ones spend the dayIn sighing and dismay.

Folks criticize my personal truth and even go out as far as attacking my craft's subject matter without knowing what God put in my heart.

As when, O lady mine,With chiselled touchThe stone unhewn and coldBecomes a living mould,The more the marble wastes,The more the statue grows.

...few young poets [are] testing their poems against the ear. They're writing for the page, and the page, let me tell you, is a cold bed.

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.No time to stand beneath the boughsAnd stare as long as sheep or cows...

Searching my heart for its true sorrow, This is the thing I find to be: That I am weary of words and people, Sick of the city, wanting the sea.

Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.

Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.