A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
—Walter De La Mare (1873–1956)
Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)
Poor comfort all comfort: once what the mouse had spared
Was enough, was delight, there where the heart was at home;
—Ruth Pitter (b. 1897)