Till I, high in the tower of my time Among familiar ruins, began to cry For accident, sickness, justice, war and crime, Because all died, because I had to die. The snow fell, the trees stood, the promise kept, And a child I slept.

When I was starting to write, the great influence was T.S. Eliot and after that William Butler Yeats.

Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed.

[T]eaching has been for me an education (Lord knows what it has been for my students).

I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know.

History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.

A chronicle is very different from history proper.