Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues--faith and hope.

--from Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

* * *

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to see,
But the feet question, "Whither?"

--from Robert Frost, "Reluctance"

* * *

For though hard rockes among
She semes to haue bene bred,
And of the Tigre long
Bene nourished and fed:
Yet shall that nature change,
If pitie once win place,
Whom as vnknowen and strange
She now away doth chase.

--from Sir Thomas Wyatt, The Courte of Venus

* * *

i was leaving my fifty-eighth year
when a thumb of ice
stamped itself hard near my heart

--from Lucille Clifton, "1994"

* * *

Words dry and riderless,

The indefatigable hoof-taps.

While

From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars

Govern a life.

--from Sylvia Plath, "Words"