Marriage, Like Money, Is Still With Us;

The Difference Between You And Her (whom I To You Did Once Prefer) Is Clear Enough To Settle: She Like A Diamond Shone, But You Shine Like An Early Drop Of Dew Poised On A Red Rose Petal. The Dew-drop Carries In Its Eye Mountain And Forest, Sea And Sky, With Every Change Of Weather; Contrariwise, A Diamond Splits The Prospect Into Idle Bits That None Can Piece Together.

The Sap Of Spring In The Young Wood A-stir Will Celebrate With Green The Mother, And Every Song-bird Shout Awhile For Her; But We Are Gifted, Even In November Rawest Of Seasons, With So Huge A Sense Of Her Nakedly Worn Magnificence We Forget Cruelty And Past Betrayal, Heedless Of Where The Next Bright Bolt May Fall.

Prose Books Are The Show Dogs I Breed And Sell To Support My Cat.

The Art Of Poetry Consists In Taking The Poem Through Draft After Draft, Without Losing Its Inspirational Magic: He Removes Everything Irrelevant Or Distracting, And Tightens Up What Is Left. Lazy Poets Never Carry Their Early Drafts Far Enough: Some Even Believe That Virtue Lies In The Original Doodle Scrawled On The Back Of An Envelope.

I Was Last In Rome In Ad 540 When It Was Full Of Goths And Their Heavy Horses. It Has Changed A Great Deal Since Then.