Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. - William Butler Yeats

...I was shocked and astonished when a daring little girl — a cousin I think — having waited under a group of trees in the avenue, where she knew [my grandfather] would pass near four o'clock on the way to his dinner, said to him, 'If I were you and you were a little girl, I would give you a doll.

And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out...

I will make rigid my roots and branches. It is not now my turn to burst into leaves and flowers.