“POSTNot a head stands out A finger rises Then it is the voice that one knows A signal a brief note A man leaves Up above a cloud that passes by No one goes in And the night keeps its secret”

“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”

“All knowing darkens as it builds. The grass is a mirror that clouds as the bright look goes in. You stay in the night, you squat in the hills in the cave of night. Wait. Above, luminous rubble, torn webs of radio signals. Below, stone scrapers, neck bone of a deer, salt beds. The world is ending.”

“When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of destiny.”

“One cannot always keep an adder in one's breast to feed one, nor rise up every night to sow thorns in the garden of one's soul.”

“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes.”