Nature and Elements

A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.

Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

Noche oscura.

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon … the two most beautiful words in the English language.

Cats and monkeys—monkeys and cats—all human life is there!

… With a sudden sharp hot stink of fox,

It took the whole of Creation

I’ve known rivers:

O fons Bandusiae, splendidior vitro.

Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret.

My heart in hiding

What would the world be, once bereft

Athene sent them a following breeze, a strong west wind that whistled over the wine-dark sea.

Athene sent them a following breeze, a strong west wind that whistled over the wine-dark sea.

Rosy-fingered dawn.

Very like leaves

All a green willow, willow;

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

This is the weather the cuckoo likes,

This is the weather the cuckoo likes,

In a solitude of the sea

Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go … Life is nothing. Life is all. It is the hand with which we hold off death. It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,