Never have I been so much alone — I tried to think of my knowledge, but it was a squirrel's heap of winter nuts. There was no strength in my knowledg… - Stephen Vincent Benét

It's time to walk to the cider mill
Through air like apple wine,
And watch the moon rise over the hill,
stinging and hard and fine.

It's time to bury your seed pods deep
And let them wait and be warm.
It's time to sleep the heavy sleep
That does not wake for the storm.

When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there. When the first slaver put out for the Congo, I stood on her deck. Am I not in your books and stories and beliefs, from the first settlements on? Am I not spoken of, still, in every church in New England? 'Tis true the North claims me for a Southerner and the South for a Northerner, but I am neither. I am merely an honest American like yourself — and of the best descent — for, to tell the truth, Mr. Webster, though I don't like to boast of it, my name is older in this country than yours.

Something begins, begins; Starlit and sunlit, something walks abroad In flesh and spirit and fire. Something is loosed to change the shaken world.