Come, let us leave behind the prose of our living:
    leave the close routine of coming and going
    by familiar ways,
    the work of calculation, the fractions and the
    endless points,
    the blue-prints of security and the tomes of
    heavy regulation.

Let us be immersed in the poetry of living:
    poetry which captures for us the hinges and the
    fringes of the universe,
    which lifts expectation to the whirl and curl
    of time's unravelling
    and sings to us of the dowry and the dirge,
    of man and woman
    as they flow together and fall apart.

Poetry is life's making, love's waking,
Limb's playing, heart's praying.
It comes like a tremor in the head,
Like a joke not seen while the story was being told.
It comes like a bubble in a fumarole,
From the sulphur mud.

Its words are there before the meaning.
Its meaning is there nevertheless, playing hide-and-seek.
It is already laughing before the tears are dry
And already weeping while the merriment still ripples.
It begins without fanfare;
But when it ends there is little more to be said.

Poetry is life's making and a good life is a poem
well-turned.

        You need not clash the cymbal loud
        Nor blow the fluted horn;
        Just scoop a spindrift off the sea
            When he is born.

        You need not pipe: Come back again
        My fledgling son!
        Just stand and watch, and grip your heart
            Till he is gone.

        You need no diapason play
        When he is wed;
        Just draw the curtain, modestly,
            Around his bed.

        You need not chant the shepherd's psalm,
        Nor roll the muted drum;
        Just watch the sunlight on the wave
            When death has come.

Let us turn aside from the erratic flight of poetry:
    from the dactyl and the anapaest,
    and from the free loose limbs of symbol.

Living is not looping-the-loop all the time;
It is walking with determined tread and firm purpose.

Let us turn to platitude and truths well-tested,
    to adage and maxim and the sonorous beat
    of undramatic tale.

Adam begat his sons only when the garden of bliss
    was barred.
Outside the rapture of innocence and the rupture of
    temptation Adam dug and Eve span.

For every mountain that lifts its head above the clouds,
    there leagues of plain lying patient underneath the sky.
For every cascade that whitens water and turns sunlight
    into rainbow, there are meandering miles of sluggish river.
For every jackal-pool of water and circle shade of palm,
    there are shimmering miles of sand on every side.
For every masque and festa there are a hundred days of
    shovel and saw, of scribbling pen and stenograph.
For every minute of food well-tasted and wine-sipped,
    there are hours of buying and bargaining, paring and
    cooking; the grape is a long time maturing on the bough
    and longer in the cellar.

Every day light comes and we waken to work or leisure.
Every day hunger comes, but earth and human toil
    provide for our wants.
Every day the measures of time are laid out and we fill
    them with achievement or mar them with failure.
Every day comes challenge to our fidelity, appeal
    to our honour and demand to our strength.

Find dedication and dignity in the self, for on him who
    has found composure others may rely.
Find strength among mature comrades, for a rope of many
    strands is stronger than a single thread.
Build strength into the affairs of men, for where work
    is honest and skilled a multitude may thrive.
Put charity at the the core of community, for when the house
    shatters a corps of builders will be there.
Spin wisdom into the cords of learning, for sound sense
    will banish the spectre of fear.

When days of rapture have withered,
we still have unsanctified weeks in which to live.
By constancy in our work,
By generosity in our friendship,
By reverence for the least of those whom we encounter,
Let us walk in the ways of quietness.