"Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse."

"I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return."

"I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night."

"One rational voice is dumb: over a grave The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved. Sad is Eros, builder of cities, And weeping anarchic Aphrodite."

"To us he is no more a person Now but a whole climate of opinion."

"An important Jew who died in exile."

"In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise."

"In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark, And the living nations wait, Each sequestered in its hate;Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye."

"Time that with this strange excuse Pardoned Kipling and his views, And will pardon Paul Claudel, Pardons him for writing well."

"Earth, receive an honoured guest; William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry."

"You were silly like us: your gift survived it all; The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself; mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its saying where executives Would never want to tamper; it flows south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth."

"Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom."

"When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse."

"By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems."

"He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, And snow disfigured the public statues; The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day."

"Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard."

"Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went."

"Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets."

"O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist; Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you’ve missed.The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the tea cup opens A lane to the land of the dead."

"August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier."

"We must lose our loves, On each beast and bird that moves Turn an envious look."

"Fish in the unruffled lakes Their swarming colours wear, Swans in the winter air A white perfection have, And the great lion walks Through his innocent grove; Lion, fish and swan Act, and are gone Upon Time's toppling wave."

"A shilling life will give you all the facts."

"Cold, impossible, ahead Lifts the mountain's lovely head Whose white waterfall could bless Travellers in their last distress."

"Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last; Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on."

"O it's broken the lock and splintered the door, O it's the gate where they're turning, turning; Their boots are heavy on the floor And their eyes are burning."

"O what is that sound which so thrills the ear Down in the valley drumming, drumming? Only the scarlet soldiers, dear, The soldiers coming."

"Look, stranger, on this island now The leaping light for your delight discovers, Stand stable here And silent be, That through the channels of the ear May wander like a river The swaying sound of the sea."

"Let the florid music praise, The flute and the trumpet, Beauty’s conquest of your face: In that land of flesh and bone, Where from citadels on high Her imperial standards fly, Let the hot sun Shine on, shine on."

"Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead."

"And make us as Newton was, who in his garden watching The apple falling towards England, became aware Between himself and her of an eternal tie."

"Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart."

"Sir, no man's enemy, forgiving all But will his negative inversion, be prodigal: Send to us power and light, a sovereign touch Curing the intolerable neural itch, The exhaustion of weaning, the liar's quinsy, And the distortions of ingrown virginity."

"To ask the hard question is simple, The simple act of the confused will."

"If we really want to live, we’d better start at once to try; If we don’t it doesn’t matter, we’d better start to die."

"Put the car away; when life fails What's the good of going to Wales? Here am I, here are you: But what does it mean? What are we going to do?"

"Let us honor if we can The vertical man Though we value none But the horizontal one."

"Only in rites can we renounce our oddities and be truly entired."

"Though the great artists of the past could not change the course of history, it is only through their work that we are able to break bread with the dead, and without communion with the dead a fully human life is impossible."

"Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing."

"Left to itself the masculine imagination has very little appreciation for the here and now; it prefers to dwell on what is absent, on what has been or may be. If men are more punctual than women, it is because they know that, without the external discipline of clock time, they would never get anything done."

"The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one might say that all men, left to themselves, become gnostics. They may swagger like peacocks, but in their heart of hearts they all think sex an indignity and wish they could beget themselves on themselves. Hence the aggressive hostility toward women so manifest in most club-car stories."

"A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language."

"Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions To all musicians, appear and inspire: Translated Daughter, come down and startle Composing mortals with immortal fire."

"In a garden shady this holy lady With reverent cadence and subtle psalm, Like a black swan as death came on Poured forth her song in perfect calm: And by ocean’s margin this innocent virgin Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer, And notes tremendous from her great engine Thundered out on the Roman air.Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited, Moved to delight by the melody, White as an orchid she rode quite naked In an oyster shell on top of the sea."

"Every day America's destroyed and re-created, America is what you do, America is I and you, America is what you choose to make it."

"Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one."

"Letters of thanks, letters from banks, Letters of joy from girl and boy, Receipted bills and invitations To inspect new stock or to visit relations, And applications for situations, And timid lovers' declarations, And gossip, gossip from all the nations."

"This is the Night Mail crossing the Border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order,Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner, the girl next door.Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb: The gradient's against her, but she’s on time.Past cotton-grass and moorland border, Shovelling white steam over her shoulder."

"At the far end of the enormous room An orchestra is playing to the rich."