When the whole world is running headlong towards the precipice, one who walks in the opposite direction is looked at as being crazy.

Signs are taken for wonders. / 'We would see a sign!' / The word within a word, unable to speak a word, / Swaddled with darkness.

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think

What have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment's surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed.

With a poem you can say 'I got my feeling into words for myself. I now have the equivalent in words for that much of what I have felt.'

It is a test (a positive test, I do not assert that it is always valid negatively), that genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

The sense of wellbeing! Its often with us When we are young, but then it's not noticed; And by the time one has grown to consciousness It comes less often.