Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.

The decline of true taste for food is the beginning of a decline in a national culture as a whole. When people have lost their authentic personal taste, they lose their personality and become the instruments of other people's wills.

The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.

Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.

We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.

The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate with green the Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of Her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.