Suppose that we, to-morrow or the next day, / Came to an end - in storm the shafting broken, / Or a mistaken signal, the flange lifting - / Would that be premature, a text for sorrow?

206

I sang as one / Who on a tilting deck sings / To keep men's courage up, though the wave hangs / That shall cut off their sun.

126

It is the logic of our times,No subject for immortal verse-That we who lived by honest dreamsDefend the bad against the worse.

123

No good poem, however confessional it may be, is just a self-expression. Who on earth would claim that the pearl expresses the oyster?

111