“If I only could sleep!”

A stark recurring expression of exhaustion during the final illness of his life · Late letters quoted by Louise Chandler Moulton in her biographical sketch

• Rest
• Sadness
• Suffering

“I could see the tree-boughs waving in the wind, and I could see the pageant of sunset in the west, and the glimmer of a fire upon the hearth.”

Recalling the fragments of visual beauty that remained to him before complete blindness · Reminiscence recorded by William Sharp, Papers Critical and Reminiscent

• Beauty
• Memory
• Nature

“I shall so like to paint their dear little house in Brittany.”

Revealing his eagerness to make imagined places vivid through words · Letter, quoted in an 1887 reminiscence

• Art
• Imagination
• Writing

“I want to tell them of what the flowers talk about when the garden is very still.”

A characteristic expression of Marston's imaginative intimacy with the natural world · Letter, quoted in an 1887 reminiscence

• Imagination
• Nature
• Wonder

“No poem gives me such an idea of the heartlessness of Nature. The poem is Death within and Summer without—light girdling darkness—and it leaves a picture and impression on the mind never to be effaced.”

Admiring the unforgettable contrast between natural beauty and human grief · Letter to Louise Chandler Moulton, on The House of Death

• Death
• Nature
• Poetry

“And as they are of no school they will be fresh, as the old delights of earth are ever fresh.”

Arguing that poetry independent of schools and fashions can retain its freshness · Letter to Louise Chandler Moulton, quoted in Representative Women of New England

• Independence
• Poetry
• Tradition

“The divine simplicity, strength and subtlety, the intense, fragrant, genuine individuality of your poems will make them imperishable.”

Valuing simplicity, strength, subtlety and individuality as qualities that give poetry lasting life · Letter to Louise Chandler Moulton, quoted in Representative Women of New England

• Poetry
• Simplicity
• Style

“There can be no doubt that, measuring by quality, not quantity, your place is in the very foremost rank of poets.”

Insisting that literary achievement should be judged by quality rather than abundance · Letter to Louise Chandler Moulton, quoted in Representative Women of New England

• Criticism
• Poetry
• Writing

“It seems to me this perfect poem is possessed by the melancholy yet tender music of winds sighing at twilight, in some churchyard, through old trees that watch beside silent graves.”

Describing how poetry can fuse sound, atmosphere, nature and melancholy · Letter to Louise Chandler Moulton, quoted in Representative Women of New England

• Music
• Nature
• Poetry

“Much as we all love and admire your work, it seems to me we have not yet fully realized the unostentatious loveliness of your lyrics, as fine for lyrics as your best sonnets are for sonnets.”

Praising lyric poetry whose artistry works without display or self-consciousness · Letter to Louise Chandler Moulton, quoted in Representative Women of New England

• Beauty
• Poetry
• Style