I have been Merlin wandering in the woods Of a far country, where the winds waken Unnatural voices , my mind broken By a sudden acquaintance with man's rage.

I have nowhere to go. The swift satellites show The clock of my whole being is slow.

Poetry is that / which arrives at the intellect / by way of the heart.

They left no books , Memorial to their lonely thought In grey parishes: rather they wrote On men's hearts and in the minds Of young children sublime words Too soon forgotten. God in his time Or out of time will correct this.

Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil that goes like blood to the poems making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, Limp as bindweed, if it break at all Life's iron crust Man, you must sweat And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build Your verse a ladder.

You cannot find the centre Where we dance , where we play, Where life is still asleep Under the closed flower , Under the smooth shell Of eggs in the cupped nest That mock the faded blue Of your remoter heaven .

Verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beauty