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To leave the open fields
and enter the forest, that was the rite.
Knowing there was mystery, they could go.
Go back now! And he receded among the multitude of forms, the twists and shadows they saw now, listening to the hum of the world's wood.

— Denise Levertov The Novices (1960)

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More quotes by Denise Levertov

Praise
the invisible sun burning beyond
the white cold sky, giving us
light and the chimney's shadow.

Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus (1981)

Acknowledgement, and celebration, of mystery probably constitutes the most consistent theme of my poetry from its very beginnings.

A Poets View (1984)

Poems present their testimony as circumstantial evidences, not as closing argument.

A Poets View (1984)

Fire he sang,
that trees fear, and I, a tree, rejoiced in its flames.

A Tree Telling of Orpheus (1968)

I like to find
what's not found
at once, but lies within something of another nature,
in repose, distinct.

With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads (1960)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Denise Levertov (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.