• Frank Lloyd Wright’s favorite poems, Walt Whitman’s Song of the Open Road:

Here is the test of wisdom Wisdom is not finally tested in schools Wisdom cannot be passed from one having it to another not having it Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof Applies to all objects stages and qualities Is content Wisdom is the certainty of the reality & immortality of things and the excellence of things Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.

• ~William Cowper The Castaway

Obscurest night involv'd the sky, Th' Atlantic billows roar'd, When such a destin'd wretch as I, Wash'd headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast Than he with whom he went, Nor ever ship left Albion's coast, With warmer wishes sent. He lov'd them both, but both in vain, Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine, Expert to swim, he lay; Nor soon he felt his strength decline, Or courage die away; But wag'd with death a lasting strife, Supported by despair of life.

He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd To check the vessel's course, But so the furious blast prevail'd, That, pitiless perforce, They left their outcast mate behind, And scudded still before the wind.

Some succour yet they could afford; And, such as storms allow, The cask, the coop, the floated cord, Delay'd not to bestow. But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore, Whate'er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he Their haste himself condemn, Aware that flight, in such a sea, Alone could rescue them; Yet bitter felt it still to die Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

He long survives, who lives an hour In ocean, self-upheld; And so long he, with unspent pow'r, His destiny repell'd; And ever, as the minutes flew, Entreated help, or cried--Adieu!

At length, his transient respite past, His comrades, who before Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast, Could catch the sound no more. For then, by toil subdued, he drank The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him: but the page Of narrative sincere; That tells his name, his worth, his age, Is wet with Anson's tear. And tears by bards or heroes shed Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream, Descanting on his fate, To give the melancholy theme A more enduring date: But misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case.

No voice divine the storm allay'd, No light propitious shone; When, snatch'd from all effectual aid, We perish'd, each alone: But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.

• ~Sylvia Plath Winter Trees, "The Courage of Shutting-Up

The courage of the shut mouth, in spite of artillery! The line pink and quiet, a worm, basking. There are black discs behind it, the discs of outrage, And the outrage of a sky, the lined brain of it. The discs revolve, they ask to be heard -

Loaded, as they are, with accounts of bastardies. Bastardies, usages, desertions and doubleness. The needle journeying in its groove, Silver beast between two dark canyons, A great surgeon, now a tattooist,

Tattooing over and over the same blue grievances. The snakes, the babies, the tits On mermaids and two-legged dream girls. The surgeon is quiet, he does not speak. He has seen too much death, his hands are full of it.

• ~Rainer Maria Rilke You Who Never Arrived

You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who were lost from the start, I don't even know what songs would please you. I have given up trying to recognize you in the surging wave of the next moment. All the immense images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected turns in the path, and those powerful lands that were once pulsing with the life of the gods-- all rise within me to mean you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all the gardens I have ever gazed at, longing. An open window in a country house-- , and you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,-- you had just walked down them and vanished. And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening...

• ~Rainer Maria Rilke Rememberance

And you wait, keep waiting for that one thing which would infinitely enrich your life: the powerful, uniquely uncommon, the awakening of dormant stones, depths that would reveal you to yourself.

In the dusk you notice the book shelves with their volumes in gold and in brown; and you think of far lands you journeyed, of pictures and of shimmering gowns worn by women you conquered and lost.

And it comes to you all of a sudden: That was it! And you arise, for you are aware of a year in your distant past with its fears and events and prayers.