Death Is One Dream Out Of Another

It Is Precisely The Sort Of Thing I Am Always Trying To Do In My Writing -- To Present My Unhappy Reader With A Wide-ranged Chaos -- Of Actions And Reactions, Thoughts, Memories And Feelings -- In The Vain Hope That At The End He Will See That The Whole Thing Represents Only One Moment, One Feeling, One Person. A Raging, Trumpeting Jungle Of Associations, And Then I Announce At The End Of It, With A Gesture Of Despair, "this Is I!

You Know, Without My Telling You, How Sometimes A Word Or Name Eludes You, And You Seek It Through Running Ghosts Of Shadow -- Leaping At It, Lying In Wait For It To Spring Upon It, Spreading Faint Snares For It Of Sense Or Sound: Until, Of A Sudden, As If In A Phantom Forest, You Hear It, See It Flash Among The Branches, And Scarcely Knowing How, Suddenly Have It.

Forward Into The Untrodden! Courage, Old Man, And Hold On To Your Umbrella!

I Think That What's Happening Today, With All The Young Poets Rushing From One College To Another, Lecturing At The Drop Of A Hat And So On, Is Not Too Good; I Think It Might Have A Bad Effect On A Great Many Of The Young Poets. They - To Quote Mark Twain - "swap Juices" A Little Too Much, So That They Are In Danger Of Losing Their Own Identity And Don't Give Themselves Time Enough In Which To Work Out What's Really Of Importance To Them - They're Too Busy.

Life Is The Thing--the Song Of Life-- The Eager Plow, The Thirsty Knife!