I shall lie folded like a saint, Lapped in a scented linen sheet, On a bedstead striped with bright-blue paint, Narrow and cold and neat.

I am better able to imagine hell than heaven it is my inheritance, I suppose.

Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year The spring begins before the winter's over.

An old earthen pipe like myself is dry and thirsty and so a most voracious drinker of life at its source I'm no more to be split by the vital stream than if I were stone or steel.

The winter will be short, the summer long, The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot, Tasting of cider and of scuppernong All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all. The squirrels in their silver fur will fall Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones There's something in this richness that I hate. I love the look, austere, immaculate, Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.

I have never cared very deeply about the actual taste of my work. Let its essential odor satisfy my mind and senses, and I am content. I rarely judge by the grosser test of actual gustation ... in cooking, to create a masterpiece for the nose alone - that is exquisite, that is Art!

My lord, adjudge my strength, and set me where I bear a little more than I can bear.