"The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse —The good not done, the love not given, time Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because An only life can take so long to climb Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; But at the total emptiness for ever, The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, Not to be anywhere, And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true."

"The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be carefulOf each other, we should be kind While there is still time."

"Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth."

"Poetry is an affair of sanity, of seeing things as they are, to recreate the familiar, eternalizing the poet's own perception in unique and original verbal form."

"But, o, photography! as no art is, Faithful and disappointing! That records Dull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds, And will not censor blemishes, Like washing-lines, and Hall's-Distemper boards"

"And I, whose childhood Is a forgotten boredom, Feel like a child Who comes on a scene Of adult reconciling, And can understand nothing But the unusual laughter, And starts to be happy."

"Only one ship is seeking us, a black- Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back A huge and birdless silence. In her wake No waters breed or break."

"Some brass and stuff Up at the holy end."

"Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence."

"Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique."

"But superstition, like belief, must die..."

"A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies."

"Nothing, like something, happens anywhere."

"Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off?Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poison— Just for paying a few bills! That’s out of proportion."

"Their nippers have got bare feet, Their unspeakable wives Are skinny as whippets—and yet No one actually starves."

"Time has transfigured them into Untruth. The stone fidelity They hardly meant has come to be Their final blazon, and to prove Our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love."

"The glare of that much-mentioned brilliance, love, Broke out, to show Its bright incipience sailing above, Still promising to solve, and satisfy, And set unchangeably in order. So To pile them back, to cry, Was hard, without lamely admitting how It had not done so then, and could not now."

"Don’t read too much now: the dude Who lets the girl down before The hero arrives, the chap Who’s yellow and keeps the store, Seem far too familiar. Get stewed: Books are a load of crap."

"Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word — the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages, Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again."

"Life is first boredom, then fear. Whether or not we use it, it goes, And leaves what something hidden from us chose, And age, and then the only end of age."

"What are days for? Days are where we live. They come, they wake us Time and time over. They are to be happy in: Where can we live but days?"

"Give me your arm, old toad; Help me down Cemetery Road."

"I thought of London spread out in the sun, Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat."

"The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief.Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too. Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain.Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh."

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself."

"Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (Which was rather late for me)— Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles’ first LP"

"Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless."

"Next year we are to bring the soldiers home For lack of money, and it is all right. Places they guarded, or kept orderly, Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly."

"Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms Inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name."

"Reprinted reviews are not, as a rule, easily acceptable, but this book of jazz criticism by a distinguished poet is a different case. For a start, the writing is as crisp as you might expect and the pieces, within their small compass, are beautifully shaped."

"We are living in a time of trouble and bewilderment, in a time when none of us can foresee or foretell the future. But surely it is in times like these, when so much that we cherish is threatened or in jeopardy, that we are impelled all the more to strengthen our inner resources, to turn to the things that have no news value because they will be the same to-morrow that they were to-day and yesterday — the things that last, the things that the wisest, the most farseeing of our race and kind have been inspired to utter in forms that can inspire ourselves in turn."

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them."

"When a man sets out to paint a monumental painting, or to write an epic, men think of and , and vote all such efforts dull and pompous. Certainly it is safer to paint , or write little lyrics exquisitely. But knew that subject counts for a great deal in art. The choice of a subject obviously matters immensely, because no one works well on a subject that does not interest him; and a great subject, though it does not make a feeble treatment of it great is necessary for calling out a man's utmost powers. Resistance in one's material is a fine spur to effort; and many artists have never realised a tenth of their own latent powers till brought to grapple with a subject which perhaps, at the time, utterly defeated them. Now Watts had a natural bent towards imaginative subjects on the heroic plane. Watts was very English ..."

"Why should Cornishmen learn Cornish? There is no money in it, it serves no practical purpose, and the literature is scanty and of no great originality or value. The question is a fair one, the answer is simple. Because they are Cornish."

"There has never been a time when there has been no person in Cornwall without a knowledge of the Cornish language."

"It will lead to nothing, I fear, sir"

"Wait, sir, until I am gone!"

"But I know, my friends, that you may object to me what St. Irenaeus says."

"I think sir, since you care for the advice of an old man, sir, you will find it a very good practise, always to verify your references, sir!"