Donald Justice quotes:

Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to.

The Thin ManI indulge myselfIn rich refusals.Nothing suffices.I hone myself toThis edge. Asleep, IAm a horizon."

Soon the purple dark must bruise Lily and bleeding-heart and rose, And the little Cupid lose Eyes and ears and chin and nose

If he could sleep on it. He would make his bed with white sheets And disappear into the white, Like a man diving, If he could be certain That the light Would not keep him awake, The light that reaches To the bottom.

There is no way to ease the burden. The voyage leads on from harm to harm, A land of others and of silence.

How shall I speak of Doom, and ours in special, But as of something altogether common?

Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.

The artist will have had his revenge for being made to wait, A revenge not only necessary but right and clever-- Simply to leave him out of the scene forever.