But the sea which no one tends is also a garden

By listening to his language of his locality the poet begins to learn his craft. It is his function to lift, by use of imagination and the language he hears, the material conditions and appearances of his environment to the sphere of the intelligence where they will have new currency.

We sit and talk quietly, with long lapses of silence, and I am aware of the stream that has no language, coursing beneath the quiet heaven of your eyes, which has no speech.

It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time.

A poem is a small machine made of words. . .Its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical more than a literary character.

Somewhere the sense makes copper roses steel roses — The rose carried weight of love but love is at an end — of roses It is at the edge of the petal that love waits.

It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.