Their spirits beat upon mine Like the wings of a thousand butterflies. I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating. I closed my eyes, yet I kne… - Edgar Lee Masters

And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle — And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.

George Gray

Molte volte ho studiato
la lapide che mi hanno scolpito:
una barca con vele ammainate, in un porto.
In realtà non è questa la mia destinazione
ma la mia vita.
Perché l’amore mi si offrì e io mi ritrassi dal suo inganno;
il dolore bussò alla mia porta, e io ebbi paura;
l’ambizione mi chiamò, ma io temetti gli imprevisti.
Malgrado tutto avevo fame di un significato nella vita.
E adesso so che bisogna alzare le vele
e prendere i venti del destino,
dovunque spingano la barca.
Dare un senso alla vita può condurre a follia,
ma una vita senza senso è la tortura
dell’inquietudine e del vano desiderio.
È una barca che anela al mare eppure lo teme.

Margaret Fuller Slack I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep — set eyes — Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me, Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel, And I married him, giving birth to eight children, And had no time to write. It was all over with me, anyway, When I ran the needle in my hand While washing the baby’s things, And died from lock — jaw, an ironical death. Hear me, ambitious souls, Sex is the curse of life.