«Orioles live in the elms, and in classical verse / The length of the vowels alone determines the measure. / Once and once only a year nature knows quantity / Stretched to the limit as in Homer's meter. O this is a day that yawns like a caesura: / Serene from the start, almost painfully slow...»
«I made myself an expert in farewells / By studying laments, the night-fall of a woman’s hair. / Oxen chew their cud; anticipation lags; / It is the town’s last restless hour; / And I praise that ritual night when the cocks crowed / And eyelids, heavy with the griefs that pass, / Open...»
«When Psyche, who is life, steps down into the shadows, / the translucent wood, following Persephone, / a blind swallow casts itself at her feet / with Stygian tenderness and a green branch. The shades swarm to welcome the refugee, / their new little companion, and greet her with eager waili...»
«"The arguments of freedom shall not die: / The Roman senate testifies to this..." / Lighting his clumsy pipe, he wraps his robe / About him, while the men continue playing chess. He has exchanged his proud bedeviled dream / For a clearing in Siberia (deaf, lost) / And for this curved chib...»