Quotes to inspire and reflect

She is as in a field a silken tent At midday when a sunny summer breeze Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent, So that in guys it gently sways at ease.

The land was ours before we were the land’s. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people.

I never dared to be radical when young For fear it would make me conservative when old.

The old dog barks backward without getting up. I can remember when he was a pup.

But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really done For Heaven and the future’s sakes.

No memory of having starred Atones for later disregard, Or keeps the end from being hard. Better to go down dignified With boughten friendship by your side Than none at all. Provide, provide!

The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You’re one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

Don’t join too many gangs. Join few if any. Join the United States and join the family— But not much in between unless a college.

If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes Will keep my talk from getting overwise, I’m not the one for putting off the proof. Let it be overwhelming.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Tree at my window, window tree, My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me.

That day she put our heads together, Fate had her imagination about her, Your head so much concerned with outer, Mine with inner, weather.

It looked as if a night of dark intent Was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage. There would be more than ocean-water broken Before God’s last Put out the Light was spoken.

Keep cold, young orchard. Goodbye and keep cold. Dread fifty above more than fifty below.

Now no joy but lacks salt That is not dashed with pain And weariness and fault; I crave the stain Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove.

Love at the lips was touch As sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near.

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Why make so much of fragmentary blue In here and there a bird, or butterfly, Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye, When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

The snake stood up for evil in the Garden.

Considering the market, there are more Poems produced than any other thing? No wonder poets sometimes have to seem So much more businesslike than businessmen. Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

I shall set forth for somewhere, I shall make the reckless choice Some say when they are in voice And tossing so as to scare The white clouds over them on, I shall have less to say, But I shall be gone.

I’d like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.

Most of the change we think we see in life Is due to truths being in and out of favor.

With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out.

And nothing to look backward to with pride, And nothing to look forward to with hope.

My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” 1

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.

Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I shan’t be gone long.—You come too.

They would not find me changed from him they knew— Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon.

It’s a very odd thing— As odd as can be— That whatever Miss T. eats Turns into Miss T.

Poor Jim Jay Got stuck fast In Yesterday.

Nought but vast sorrow was there— The sweet cheat gone.

Who said “Peacock Pie”? The old king to the sparrow: Who said “Crops are ripe”? Rust to the harrow.

“Tell them that I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,” he said.

“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveler, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest’s ferny floor.

It’s easy ’nough to titter w’en de stew is smokin’ hot, But hit’s mighty ha’d to giggle w’en dey’s nuffin’ in de pot.

Since thou 2 and those who died with thee for right Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!