Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman is one of my favorite sources (my husband and I both owned copies when we met) but my favorite poems of all come from 'cyrano de begerac' by Edmond Rostand.
for short quips, I tend towards using song lyrics rather than poems, one of the nicest manuscripts I ever did revolved around the lyrics to 'chinacat sunflower' by Jerry Garcia- they don't make much sense, but they were fun to arrange artistically.
the Song of Solomon is also a great source for beautiful poetry (Matthew's not bad, either- and I think his viewpoint needs more attention than he gets) but the Koran also has some lovely passages.
my latest was taken from a quote that Mercedes Lackey borrowed from someone else-
that ends with the line 'you are responsible FOREVER for what you have tamed'
I'm donating it to an art auction for the local SPCA in october.
