"Nothing is so beautiful as spring -- when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing."

"There is no single face in nature, because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle. So every man's spice-box seasons his own food."

"Three years she grew in sun and shower,/ Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower/ On earth was never sown;/ This child I to myself will take;/ She shall be mine, and I will make/ A Lady of my own."

"Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feelings, reviews the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the springtime of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human mature, by vivid delineations of its tenderest and softest feelings, and through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life."