I do not attach much importance to the publication or non publication of my poetry and never have done. Most of it (the published part) appeared five, ten, fifteen or even thirty or more years after they were written. The few recently published in magazines (not all of them new, e.g. the sonnets) owed their fate to Nolini's eagerness and not to my initiative. But the vast bulk of what I have written (long poems mostly) lies on shelf and in drawer, most of it for more than a decade, awaiting either dissolution or an interminable revision or total recasting which at the present rate may well retain them there a decade or two more. But that is my own idiosyncrasy—it cannot be a rule or example for others.
O letter dull and cold, how can she read Gladly these lifeless lines, no fire that prove, When others even their passionate hearts exceed Caressing her sweet name with words of love? O me that I could force this barrier, turn My heart to syllables, make all desire One burning word, then would my letters yearn With some reflection of that hidden fire. Ah if I could, what then? This fiery pit Within for human eyes was never meant. All hearts would view with horror or with hate A picture not of earthly lineament. Yourself even, sweet, would start with terror back As at the hissing of a sudden snake.
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