I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.

That was my way of putting it-not very satisfactory: A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion, Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle With words and meanings.

Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still.

If one has to earn a living, therefore, the safest occupation is that most remote from the arts.

I had seen birth and death but had thought they were different.

Poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult...The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into its meaning.

In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.