Dear Rebecca,
Please excuse my delay in answering your lovely letter —
Your project sounds like an estimable one — anything that gets people interested in poetry at an early age is a wonderful idea. I’m sending along the fragments of two poems (done from memory). The first, from “The Passing of Arthur,” I like very much because it reflects the idea of the world as a changing place where people have to adapt constantly to changing truths; it seems a good answer to those who believe that everything done in their childhood is better than anything that has happened since. For me as a reporter who covered the Civil Rights Revolution in the South in the late fifties and early sixties it has particular meaning.
The other — we’d need more of the poem — is from Robert Frost — “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” — which John Kennedy quoted at about every appearance in his 1960 campaign — and about which I feel considerable nostalgia.
“And I have promises to keep / And miles to go before I sleep.”
Best of luck with your project and I hope I get to meet you someday,
“THE PASSING OF ARTHUR” (FROM IDYLLS OF THE KING)
And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfills himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure!“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson
