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Henry David Thoreau
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is
where they should be. Now put foundations under them.

LXXIV



But be contented: when that fell arrest

Without all bail shall carry me away,

My life hath in this line some interest,

Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.

When thou reviewest this, thou dost review

The very part was consecrate to thee:

The earth can have but earth, which is his due;

My spirit is thine, the better part of me:

So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,

The prey of worms, my body being dead;

The coward conquest of a wretch\'s knife,

Too base of thee to be remembered,.

  The worth of that is that which it contains,

  And that is this, and this with thee remains.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXIX



The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action: and till action, lust

Is perjur\'d, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoy\'d no sooner but despised straight;

Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

Past reason hated, as a swallow\'d bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad:

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme;

A bliss in proof,-- and prov\'d, a very woe;

Before, a joy propos\'d; behind a dream.

  All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

 	--William Shakespeare

The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible.
T. S. Eliot