Before we drained out one another's forceWith lies, self-denial, unspoken regretAnd the sick eyes that blame; before the divorceAnd the treachery.

205

Of all things, only wehave power to choose that we should die;nothing else is freein this world to refuse it.

171

I happened to findYour picture. That picture. I stopped there cold,Like a man raking piles of dead leaves in his yardWho has turned up a severed hand.

148

They wear their godhead lightly.They look out from their hill and say,To themselves, "We have nowhere to go but down;The great destination is to stay."

146

Someone will have to weed and spreadThe young sprouts. Sprinkle them in the hourWhen shadow falls across their bed.You should try to look at them every dayBecause when they come to full flowerI will be away.

130

You must call up every strength you ownAnd you can rip off the whole facial mask.

113

Sweet beast, I have gone prowling,a proud rejected manwho lived along the edgescatch as catch can;in darkness and in hedgesI sang my sour toneand all my love was howlingconspicuously alone.

111

You still whispered you would not die.Yet in the nights I heard you cryLike a whipped child. . . .

98

I haven't read one book aboutA book or memorized one plot,Or found a mind I did not doubt,I learned one date. And then forgot.And one by one the solid scholarsGet the degrees, the jobs, the dollars.

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