Keep close to Nature's heart . . . and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

Spring, hold back the sun, Hold back the gentle rain, Let the wind blow greedy Gusts against the branches Until the treetops rattle And the buds are hard.

Although it is a cold evening, down by one of the fishhouses, an old man sits netting, his net, in the gloaming almost invisible.

And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.

Dance there upon the shore; What need have you to care For wind or water’s roar? And tumble out your hair.

Though I am silent There is singing around me. Though I am dark There is vision around me. Though I am heavy There is flight around me.

Indoors or out, no one relaxes in March, that month of wind and taxes, the wind will presently disappear, the taxes last us all the year.

The whistle of a boat Calls and cries unendingly, Like some lost child In tears and trouble Hunting the harbor's breast And the harbor's eyes.

All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul. 

All Thoughts, all Passions, all Delights, Whatever stirs this mortal Frame, All are but Ministers of Love, And feed this sacred flame. 

What a field-day for the heat A thousand people in the street Singing songs and carrying signs Mostly say, hooray for our side.

Winter migrants gather In long black lines Along a silver sleek Heads held back, Throats Thrust toward An onshore rush.

I raise up my voice — not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard . . . we cannot succeed when half of us are held back.

Be not defeated by the rain, Nor let the wind prove your better. Succumb not to the snows of winter. Nor be bested by the heat of summer.

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, Its white flag waving over everything, The landscape vanished, Not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, Without any doubting or quiddit, He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play And wild and sweet the words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

On the first day of winter, the earth awakens to the cold touch of itself. Snow knows no other recourse except This falling, this sudden letting go.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas Ev’rywhere you go, There’s a tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well, It’s the sturdy kind that doesn’t mind the snow.