“All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.”

“She got out at Raspail. I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.”

“Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,I felt a door opening in me and I enteredthe clarity of early morning.One after another my former lives were departing,like ships, together with their sorrow.And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seasassigned to my brush came closer,ready now to be described better than they were before.I was not separated from people,grief and pity joined us.We forget—I kept saying—that we are all children of the King.For where we come from there is no divisioninto Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth partof the gift we received for our long journey.Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago—a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirrorof polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel staving its hull against a reef—they dwell in us,waiting for a fulfillment.I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,as are all men and women living at the same time,whether they are aware of it or not.”

“—Most distinguished voyager, what was your eon like?—Comic. Terror is forgotten.Only the ridiculous is remembered by posterity.Death from a wound, from a noose, from starvationIs one death, but folly is uncounted and new every year.”

“In Rome on the Campo dei FioriBaskets of olives and lemons,Cobbles spattered with wineAnd the wreckage of flowers.Vendors cover the trestlesWith rose-pink fish;Armfuls of dark grapesHeaped on peach-down.On this same squareThey burned Giordano Bruno.Henchmen kindled the pyreClose-pressed by the mob.Before the flames had diedThe taverns were full again,Baskets of olives and lemonsAgain on the vendors' shoulders.I thought of the Campo dei FioriIn Warsaw by the sky-carouselOne clear spring eveningTo the strains of a carnival tune.The bright melody drownedThe salvos from the ghetto wall,And couples were flyingHigh in the cloudless sky.At times wind from the burningWould drift dark kites alongAnd riders on the carouselCaught petals in midair.That same hot windBlew open the skirts of the girlsAnd the crowds were laughingOn that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.Someone will read as moralThat the people of Rome or WarsawHaggle, laugh, make loveAs they pass by martyrs' pyres.Someone else will readOf the passing of things human,Of the oblivionBorn before the flames have died.But that day I thought onlyOf the loneliness of the dying,Of how, when GiordanoClimbed to his burningThere were no wordsIn any human tongueTo be left for mankind,Mankind who live on.Already they were back at their wineOr peddled their white starfish,Baskets of olives and lemonsThey had shouldered to the fair,And he already distancedAs if centuries had passedWhile they paused just a momentFor his flying in the fire.Those dying here, the lonelyForgotten by the world,Our tongue becomes for themThe language of an ancient planet.Until, when all is legendAnd many years have passed,On a great Campo dei FioriRage will kindle at a poet's word.”

“When, as my friend suggested, I stand before Zeus (whether I die naturally, or under sentence of History)I will repeat all this that I have written as my defense.Many people spend their entire lives collecting stamps or old coins, or growing tulips. I am sure that Zius will be merciful toward people who have given themselves entirely to these hobbies, even though they are only amusing and pointless diversions. I shall say to him : "It is not my fault that you made me a poet, and that you gave me the gift of seeing simultaneously what was happening in Omaha and Prague, in the Baltic states and on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.I felt that if I did not use that gift my poetry would be tasteless to me and fame detestable. Forgive me." And perhaps Zeus, who does not call stamp-collectors and tulip-growers silly, will forgive.”

“Of all things broken and lost, porcelain troubles me most.”