Come Back, True Love! Sweet Youth, Return!—

I Always Hankered To Be A Composer - I Was Mad About Music, Though I Never Studied Seriously, And Can't Read A Note. But I Learned To Play The Piano And Became Pretty Skillful At Improvisation, Especially After A Drop Or Two.

I Compelled Myself All Through To Write An Exercise In Verse, In A Different Form, Every Day Of The Year. I Turned Out My Page Every Day, Of Some Sort - I Mean I Didn't Give A Damn About The Meaning, I Just Wanted To Master The Form - All The Way From Free Verse, Walt Whitman, To The Most Elaborate Of Villanelles And Ballad Forms. Very Good Training. I've Always Told Everybody Who Has Ever Come To Me That I Thought That Was The First Thing To Do.

O Sweet Clean Earth, From Whom The Green Blade Cometh! When We Are Dead, My Best Beloved And I, Close Well Above Us, That We May Rest Forever, Sending Up Grass And Blossoms To The Sky.

Schoolchildren All Over America Are Told To Write To Authors-often To Authors Whom They Have Never Before Heard Of, Whose Work They Are To Young To Understand In The Least, And Often In Letters Which Are Almost Illiterate. If Children Are To Be Taught To Respect The Work Of American Poets I Think Some Better Way Might Be Found To Do So- Some Way Which Would Not Make Such An Inconsiderate Demand On The Author's Time.

The Days, The Nights, Flow One By One Above Us. The Hours Go Silently Over Our Lifted Faces. We Are Like Dreamers Who Walk Beneath A Sea. Beneath High Walls We Flow In The Sun Together. We Sleep, We Wake, We Laugh, We Pursue, We Flee.