I would kneel by the bank, in the grasses dank, And drink you, drink you, drink you. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from “If,” <i>Picked Poems</i>. (Chicago:… - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I find a rapture linked with each despair, Well worth the price of anguish. I detect More good than evil in humanity. Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes, And men grow better as the world grows old.

After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
In the intensity of its own fires,
There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days
Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
So after Love has led us, till he tires
Of his own throes, and torments, and desires,
Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze,
He beckons us to follow, and across
Cool verdant vales we wander free from care.
Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?
We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;
And yet, and yet, these days are incomplete

There's one sad truth in life I've found while journeying east and west — the only folks we really wound are those we love the most. We flatter those we scarcely know; we please the fleeting guest, and deal full many a thoughtless blow to those who love us best.