. . . the Yankee dollar and Confederate dumbness combined to heal the wounds of four years of fratricidal strife. . . - Robert Penn Warren

The poem... is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see — it is, rather, a light by which we may see — and what we see is life.

Such fable ours! However sweet,
That earlier hope had, if fulfilled,
Been but child's pap and toothless meat — And meaning blunt and deed unwilled,
And we but motes that dance in light
And in such light gleam like the core
Of light, but lightless, are in right
Blind dust that fouls the unswept floor For, no: not faith by fable lives,
But from the faith the fable springs — It never is the song that gives
Tongue life, it is the tongue that sings;
And sings the song. Then, let the act
Speak, it is the unbetrayable
Command, if music, let the fact
Make music's motion; us, the fable.

In silence the heart raves. It utters words Meaningless, that never had A meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed, Freckled. In a big black Buick, Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat In front of the drugstore, sipping something Through a straw. There is nothing like Beauty. It stops your heart.It Thickens your blood. It stops your breath. It Makes you feel dirty. You need a hot bath. I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched. I thought I would die if she saw me.