As soon as war is declared it will be impossible to hold the poets back. Rhyme is still the most effective drum.

Everyone always dies for his country. If you have lived in it, well and wisely and actively, you die for it too.

Born enemies don't fight. Nations you would say were designed to go to war against each other--by their skins, their language, their smell: always jealous of e…

In wartime a man is called a hero. It doesn't make him any braver, and he runs for his life. But at least it's a hero who is running away.

Tempt me no more, for I Have known the lightning's hour, The poet's inward pride, The certainty of power.

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still.