I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down… - Robert Frost

There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers On sunny days a moment overcast; And comes that other fall we name the fall. He says the highway dust is over all. The bird would cease and be as other birds But that he knows in singing not to sing. The question that he frames in all but words Is what to make of a diminished thing.

I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn

And this is no aristocratic joke At the expense of negligible folk. We see how seriously the races swarm In their attempts at sovereignty and form. They are our wards we think to some extent For the time being and with their consent, To teach them how Democracy is meant.