«I thought they would make us the heroes / of cantantas, posters, books of all kinds; / that hats would be flung in the air / and streets go out of their minds. We had returned. / We were unbowed. / We had stayed true. But the city had thoughts of its own; / it just muttered a word or t...»
«Alive not by bread alone, / I dip a crust of sky, / in the morning chill, / in the stream flowing by.»
«Snow keeps falling night and day — / some god, now turned more strict, / is sweeping out from his domain / scraps of his old manuscripts. Sheaves of ballads, songs and odes, / all that now seems bland or weak — / he sweeps it down from his high clouds, / caught up now by newer work.»
«I went out in the clear air / and raised my eyes to the heavens / to understand our stars / and their January brilliance. I found the key to the riddle; / I grasped the heiroglyph’s secret; / I carried into our own tongue / the work of the star-poet. I recorded all this on a stump, /...»