How many times it thundered before Franklin took the hint! How many apples fell on Newton's head before he took the hint! Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep but I have promises to keep...

Poets like Shakespeare know more about poetry than any $25 an hour man.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orch-ard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night.

Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.

Sentences are not different enough to hold the attention unless they are dramatic. No ingenuity of varying structure will do. All that can save them is the speaking tone of voice somehow entangled in the words and fastened to the page for the ear of the imagination. That is all that can save poetry from sing-song, all that can save prose from itself.

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