Unendowed with wealth or pity, Little birds with scarlet legs Sitting on their speckled eggs, Eye each flu-infected city. <p> Altogether elsewhere, v… - W. H. Auden

I am beginning to lose patience With my personal relations. They are not deep And they are not cheap.

To-morrow the rediscovery of romantic love, The photographing of ravens; all the fun under Liberty's masterful shadow; To-morrow the hour of the pageant-master and the musician,<p> The beautiful roar of the chorus under the dome; To-morrow the exchanging of tips on the breeding of terriers, The eager election of chairmen By the sudden forest of hands. But to-day the struggle.<p>To-morrow for the young the poets exploding like bombs, The walks by the lake, the weeks of perfect communion; To-morrow the bicycle races Through the suburbs on summer evenings. But to-day the struggle.

Organic growth is a cyclical process; it is just as true to say that the oak is a potential acorn as it is to say the acorn is a potential oak. But the process of writing a poem, of making any art object, is not cyclical but a motion in one direction toward a definite end.