“(...) the train goes fast and is going fast when it crosses a little trestle. You catch the sober, metallic, pure, late-light, unriffled glint of the water between the little banks, under the sky, and see the cow standing in the water upstream near the single leaning willow. And all at once you feel like crying. But the train is going fast, and almost immediately whatever you feel is taken away from you, too.”

“Which is nonsense, for whatever you live is Life. That is something to remember when you meet the old classmate who says, "Well now, on our last expedition up the Congo-" or the one who says, "Gee, I got the sweetest little wife and three of the swellest kids ever-" You must remember it when you sit in hotel lobbies or lean over bars to talk to the bartender or walk down a dark street at night, in early March, and stare into a lighted window. And remember little Susie has adenoids and the bread is probably burned, and turn up the street, for the time has come to hand me down that walking cane, for I got to catch that midnight train, for all my sin is taken away. For whatever you live is life”

“There was the bulge and the glitter, and there was the cold grip way down in the stomach as though somebody had laid hold of something in there, in the dark which is you, with a cold hand in a cold rubber glove. It was like the second when you come home late at night and see the yellow envelope of the telegram sticking out from under your door and you lean and pick it up, but don't open it yet, not for a second. While you stand there in the hall, with the envelope in your hand, you feel there's an eye on you, a great big eye looking straight at you from miles and dark and through walls and houses and through your coat and vest and hide and sees you huddled up way inside, in the dark which is you, inside yourself, like a clammy, sad little fetus you carry around inside yourself. The eye knows what's in the envelope, and it is watching you to see you when you open it and know, too. But the clammy, sad little fetus which is you way down in the dark which is you too lifts up its sad little face and its eyes are blind, and it shivers cold inside you for it doesn't want to know what is in that envelope. It wants to lie in the dark and not know, and be warm in its not-knowing.”

“Season late, day late, sun just down, and the skyCold gunmetal but with a wash of live rose, and she,From water the color of sky except whereHer motion has fractured it to shivering splinters of silver,Rises. Stands on the raw grass. AgainstThe new-curdling night of spruces, nakednessGlimmers and, at bosom and flank, dripsWith fluent silver. The man, Some ten strokes out, but now hangingMotionless in the gunmetal water, feetCold with the coldness of depth, allHistory dissolving from him, isNothing but an eye. Is an eye only. Sees The body that is marked by his use, and Time's,Rise, and in the abrupt and unsustaining element of air,Sway, lean, grapple the pond-bank. SeesHow, with that posture of female awkwardness that is,And is the stab of, suddenly perceived grace, breasts bulge down inThe pure curve of their weight and buttocksMoon up and, in swelling unity,Are silver and glimmer. Then The body is erect, she is herself, whateverSelf she may be, and with an end of the towel grasped in each hand,Slowly draws it back and forth across back and buttocks, butWith face lifted toward the high sky, whereThe over-wash of rose color now fails. Fails, though no starYet throbs there. The towel, forgotten,Does not move now. The gazeRemains fixed on the sky. The body, Profiled against the darkness of spruces, seemsTo draw to itself, and condense in its whiteness, what lightIn the sky yet lingers or, fromThe metallic and abstract severity of water, lifts. The body,With the towel now trailing loose from one hand, isA white stalk from which the face flowers gravely toward the high sky.This moment is non-sequential and absolute, and admitsOf no definition, for itSubsumes all other, and sequential, moments, by whichDefinition might be possible. The woman, Face yet raised, wraps,With a motion as though standing in sleep,The towel about her body, under her breasts, and,Holding it there hieratic as lost Egypt and erect,Moves up the path that, stair-steep, windsInto the clamber and tangle of growth. BeyondThe lattice of dusk-dripping leaves, whitenessDimly glimmers, goes. Glimmers and is gone, and the man, Suspended in his darkling medium, staresUpward where, though not visible, he knowsShe moves, and in his heart he cries out that, if onlyHe had such strength, he would put his hand forthAnd maintain it over her to guard, in allHer out-goings and in-comings, from whateverInclemency of sky or slur of the world's weatherMight ever be. In his heart he cries out. Above Height of the spruce-night and heave of the far mountain, he seesThe first star pulse into being. It gleams there. I do not know what promise it makes him. ”

“I was headed out down a long bone-white road, straight as a string and smooth as glass and glittering and wavering in the heat and humming under the tires like a plucked nerve. I was doing seventy-five but I never seemed to catch up with the pool which seemed to be over the road just this side of the horizon. Then, after a while, the sun was in my eyes, for I was driving west. So I pulled the sun screen down and squinted and put the throttle to the floor. And kept on moving west. For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that thar's gold in them-thar hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go.It was just where I went.”

“So I pulled the sun screen down and squinted and put the throttle to the floor. And kept on moving west. For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the oldfield pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. IT is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and see the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that thar's gold in them-thar hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go.”

“(There is always another country and always another place.There is always another name and another face.And the name and the face are you, and youThe name and the face, and the stream you gaze intoWill show the adoring face, show the lips that lift to youAs you lean with the implacable thirst of self,As you lean to the image which is yourself,To set the lip to lip, fix eye on bulging eye,To drink not of the stream but of your deep identity,But water is water and it flows,Under the image on the water the water coils and goesAnd its own beginning and its end only the water knows.There are many countries and the rivers in them-Cumberland, Tennessee, Ohio, Colorado, Pecos, Little Big Horn,And Roll, Missouri, roll.But there is only water in them.And in the new country and in the new, placeThe eyes of the new friend will reflect the new faceAnd his mouth will speak to frameThe syllables of the new nameAnd the name is you and is the agitation of the airAnd is the wind and the wind runs and the wind is everywhere.The name and the face are you.And they are you.Are new.For they have been dipped in the healing flood.For they have been dipped in the redeeming blood.For they have been dipped in TimeAnd Time is only beginningsTime is only and always beginningsAnd is the redemption of our crimeAnd is our Saviour's priceless blood.For Time is always the new place,And no-place.For Time is always the new name and the new face,And no-name and no-face.For Time is motionFor Time is innocenceFor Time is West.)”