Unknown

I have five pebbles, not too different in size and weight, yet a randomness about them. If I drop them on the carpet they will scatter.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

You ask me why I live in the grey hills.
I smile but do not answer, for my thoughts are elsewhere.
Like peach petals carried by the stream, they have gone
To other climates, to countries other than the world of men.

Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven,
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
Forming a ring, perhaps or joining hands

But these manoeuvrings to avoid
The touching of hands,
These shifts to keep the eyes employed
On objects more or less neutral
(As honour, for the time being, commands)
Will hardly prevent their downfall.