The change came, and the music passed away.

He raised again the jug regretfully And shook his head, and was again alone. There was not much that was ahead of him, And there was nothing in the town below– Where strangers would have shut the many doors That many friends had opened long a

Below him, in the town among the trees, Where friends of other days had honored him,

No life, no love, no children, and no men; And over the forgotten place there clings The strange and unrememberable light That is in dreams. The music failed, and then God frowned, and shut the village from His sight.

Here where the dull sun shines this afternoon

It takes life to love Life.

And what is love but a rose that fades?

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

Better to go down dignified With boughten friendship at your side

Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

By moonlight—the moon shines in all night when there is a moon—I wouldn’t know it was the same paper.

“I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!

Unresting water, there shall never be rest

O water, voice of my heart, crying in the sand, All night long crying with a mournful cry,

As I lie and listen, and cannot understand

I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads.

Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it

if any captious critic were to drag them to light, historians would probably reply, with one voice, that they had never supposed themselves required to know what they were talking about. Adams, for one, had toiled in vain to find out what he meant.

how little he knew about electricity or force of any kind, even of his own special sun, which spouted heat in inconceivable volume, but which, as far as he knew, might spout less or more, at any time, for all the certainty he felt in it

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. Adams had looked at most of the accumulations of art in the storehouses called Art Museums; yet he did not know how to look at the art exhibits of 1900. He had studied Karl Marx and his doctrines of history with profound attention, yet he could not apply them at Paris.

His stalk the dark delphinium Unthorned into the tending hand Releases. . . yet that hour will come. . .

The coarse defeats the twice-refine

And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,

And other withered stumps of time

Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines

Memory and desire, stirring

I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Resting bull pin.

Man, doughty Man, what power has brought you low,

Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!

I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.

I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store.