'There is no God,' the wicked saith, 'and truly it's a blessing, for what he might have done with us it's better only guessing.? - Arthur Hugh Clough 'There Is No God'

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares. - Chidiock Tichborne 'Tichborne's Elegy'

Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine. - Ben Jonson 'Song To Celia'

Sleep on my love in thy cold bed, never to be disquieted. - Henry King 'An exequy to his matchless never to be forgotten friend'

What we cannot speak about we must

Man differs more from man than man from beast.

I believe that in all diverse forms of artistic expression across all countries, there are some sensitivities in common. Esther Phillips

I might have known, / What far too soon, alas! I learn'd / The heart can bind itself alone, / And faith may oft be unreturn'd.' Matthew Arnold, 'Isolation: To Marguerite'

All things within this fading world hath end. ('Before the Birth of One of Her Children')

Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime. Andrew Marvell, 'To His Coy Mistress'

Poetry is an art of considering the present. Like music, the performative aspect of poetry forces us to be alert to the possibility of the moment, to experience and capture it fully.

The opposite of the octopus's disappearing trick: the poem creates a cloud of ink in order to appear behind it (rather to its own surprise).