“Try to remember this: what you project Is what you will perceive; what you perceive With any passion, be it love or terror, May take on whims and powers of its own. Therefore a numb and grudging circumspection Will serve you best - unless you overdo it, Watching your step too narrowly, refusing To specify a world, shrinking your purview To a tight vision of your inching shoes, Which may, as soon as you come to think, be crossing An unseen gorge upon a rotten trestle.” ThinkingWorldTryingMayRememberPassionVisionStepsProjectsShoesTerrorPerceiveUnseenRottenCrossingsNumbWhimShrinkingGorgesCircumspection Book:Collected Poems 1943-2004 Source: Collected Poems 1943-2004
“A thrush, because I'd been wrong, Burst rightly into song In a world not vague, not lonely, Not governed by me only.” WorldSongLonelyVagueThrush Book:Collected Poems 1943-2004 Source: Collected Poems 1943-2004
“I would feel dead if I didn't have the ability periodically to put my world in order with a poem. I think to be inarticulate is a great suffering, and is especially so to anyone who has a certain knack for poetry.” IfsThinkingWorldFeelsCertainSufferingOrderAbilityKnackInarticulate Author:Richard Wilbur
