“...Then a man turnedAnd said to me: "Although I love the past, the dark of it,The weight of it teaching us nothing, the loss of it, the allOf it asking for nothing, I will love the twenty-first cen...”

“There is no end to what we can learn. The book out thereTells us as much, and was never written with us in mind.”

“ And into the close and mirrored catacombs of sleepWe'll fall, and there in the faded light discover the bones,The dust, the bitter remains of someone who might have been Had we not...”

“What we desire, more than a season or weather, is the comfortOf being strangers, at least to ourselves.”

“No voice comes from outer space, from the folds of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew how long the ruins would last we would never...”

“Time slips by; our sorrows do not turn into poems,And what is invisible stays that way.”

“Trees lose their leaves in blizzards like these.”

“It snowed all week. Wheels and footsteps moved soundlessly on the street, as if the business of living continued secretly behind a pale but impenetrable curtain. In the falling quiet there was no s...”

“It was snowing when I got off the bus at Flax Hill. Not quite regular snowfall, not exactly a blizzard. This is how it was: The snow came down heavily, settled for about a minute, then the wind mov...”

“Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.We laughed, knowing that better men would come,And greater wars: whe...”

“I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.”

“It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road.”

“Im not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Ive seen a chunk of the universe, true, but theres still so much more to see. I doubt Ill ever cure t...”

“My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.”

“Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmonious...”