“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.”

“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.”

“I am not my own friend.Time cuts me in two.”

“You who wronged a simple man Bursting into laughter at the crime, And kept a pack of fools around you To mix good and evil, to blur the line, Though everyone bowed down before you, Saying virtue and wisdom lit your way, Striking gold medals in your honor, Glad to have survived another day, Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date. And you’d have done better with a winter dawn, A rope, and a branch bowed beneath your weight.”

“You see how I tryTo reach with wordsWhat matters mostAnd how I fail.”

“When everything was fineAnd the notion of sin had vanishedAnd the earth was readyIn universal peaceTo consume and rejoiceWithout creeds and utopias,I, for unknown reasons,Surrounded by the booksOf prophets and theologians,Of philosophers, poets,Searched for an answer,Scowling, grimacing,Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.What oppressed me so muchWas a bit shameful.Talking of it aloudWould show neither tact nor prudence.It might even seem an outrageAgainst the health of mankind. . .”

“And when people cease to believe that there is good and evil,Only beauty will call to them and save themSo that they will know how to say: this is true and that is false.”