I'm Afraid I Wasn't Much Of A

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.

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.

For In This Walk, This Voyage, It Is Yourself, The Profound History Of Your 'self,' That Now As Always You Encounter.

My Heart Has Become As Hard As A City Street, The Horses Trample Upon It, It Sings Like Iron, All Day Long And All Night Long They Beat, They Ring Like The Hooves Of Time.

I'm Not In The Least Southern; I'm Entirely New England.