Let me take you down, ‘cos I’m going to strawberry fields. Nothing is real and nothing to get hung up about. Strawberry fields for ever. Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see…   John Lennon (1940-80), The Beatles, 1967.

Elaenor Rigby picks up the rice in the church Where a wedding has been, Lives in a dream; Waits at the window, Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door. Who is it for?   John Lennon (1940-80) and Paul McCartney (1942- ).  

Smugness is the first reward befalls impatient certainty – your world and you are in accord of mutual unreality at rest; the last (reward) is being bored.   R.P. Blackmur (1904-65).      

And after this quick bash in the dark You will rise and go, Thinking of how empty you have grown, And whether all the evening’s care in front of mirrors, And the younger boys disowned, Led simply to this.   Confined to what you are expected to be, By what you are, Out...

Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) - Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban And the Beatles' first LP. Up to then there'd only been A sort of bargaining, A wrangle for the ring, A shame that started at sixteen And spread...

 You said you'd come and share all my sorrows You said you'd be there for all my tomorrows I came so close from sending you away But just like you promised You came here to stay I just had to pray   And Jesus said, "Come to the water Stand by my side I know you are...

O God, can a man find you when he lies with his face downwards And his nose in the rubble that was his achievement? Is the music playing behind the door of despair?   Patrick Kavanagh (1904-67), From Failure Up, 1988.

Exaggerate each feature until man is Metamorphosized into beast, vermin, insect. Fill in the background with malignant Figures from ancient nightmares – devils, When your icon of the enemy is complete You will be able to kill without guilt, Slaughter without shame....

 I’ve looked at life from both sides now, From win and lose and still somehow It’s life’s illusions I recall; I really don’t know life at all.    Joni Mitchell (1945 - ), 1967.

No man is an island, entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less; As well as if a promontory were, As well as if a manor of thy friends, or of thine own, were; Any man’s death...

But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, And by their vices brought to servitude, Than to love bondage more than liberty, Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty, And to despise, or envy, or suspect, Whom God hath of his special favour raised As their deliverer;...

My conscience umpire; whom if they will hear, Light after light well used they shall attain, And to the end persisting safe arrive. This my long sufferance, and my day of grace, They who neglect and scorn shall never taste; But be hardened, blind be blinded more, That...