Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.

A definite purpose, like blinders on a horse, inevitably narrows its possessor's point of view.

Every poem is a momentary stay against the confusion of the world.

It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound-that he will never get over it.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom... in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

A voice said, Look me in the stars And tell me truly, men of earth, If all the soul-and-body scars Were not too much to pay for birth.

But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.