As for what you're calling hard luck - well, we made New England out of it. That and codfish.

I have fallen in love with American names, the sharp, gaunt names that never get fat.

American Muse, whose strong and diverse heart So many men have tried to understand But only made it smaller with their art, Because you are as various as your land.

And Thames and all the rivers of the kings Ran into Mississippi and were drowned. They planted England with a stubborn trust But the cleft dust was never English dust.

I tried to think of my knowledge, but it was a squirrel's heap of winter nuts. There was no strength in my knowledge any more and I felt small and naked as a new-hatched bird.

Remember that when you say "I will have non of this exile and this stranger for his face is not like my face and his speech is strange," you have denied America with that word.

Dreaming men are haunted men.