Sometimes, when I'm alone, I cry, 'cause I am on my own. The tears I cry are bitter and warm. They flow with life, but take no form. I cry because my heart is torn. I find it difficult to carry on. If I had an ear to confide in, I would cry among my treasured friends, but who do you know that stops that long, to help another carry on?

It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound-that he will never get over it.

The hurt is not enough: I long for weight and strength. To feel the earth as rough to all my length.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler,long I stood And looked down one as far as I could;To where it bent in the undergrowth.

It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.