[00:00.89]I feel that this award
[00:02.15]was not made to me as a man,
[00:03.94]but to my work
[00:05.46]a life's work in the agony
[00:06.77]and sweat of the human spirit,
[00:08.86]not for glory
[00:09.73]and least of all for profit
[00:11.40]but to create out of the materials
[00:12.98]of the human spirit something
[00:14.45]which did not exist before.
[00:16.34]So this award is only mine in trust.
[00:19.76]It will not be difficult
[00:21.64]to find a dedication
[00:22.81]for the money part of it commensurate
[00:24.60]with the purpose
[00:25.47]and significance of its origin.
[00:27.51]But I would like to do the same
[00:28.99]with the acclaim too
[00:30.31]by using this moment
[00:31.32]as a pinnacle from
[00:32.34]which I might be listened to
[00:33.96]by the young men and women
[00:35.33]already dedicated
[00:36.30]to the same anguish and travail,
[00:38.49]among whom is already
[00:39.87]that one who will some day stand
[00:42.31]where I am standing.
[00:43.88]Our tragedy today is a general
[00:45.67]and universal physical fear
[00:47.39]so long sustained by now
[00:49.22]that we can even bear it.
[00:50.59]There are no longer problems of the spirit.
[00:53.03]There is only the question
[00:54.46]When will I be blown up?
[00:55.83]Because of this
[00:57.00]the young man or woman
[00:58.12]writing today
[00:58.88]has forgotten the problems
[01:00.25]of the human heart
[01:01.37]in conflict with itself
[01:03.00]which alone can make good writing
[01:05.33]because only that is worth writing about,
[01:07.67]worth the agony and the sweat.
[01:09.86]He must learn them again.
[01:11.27]He must teach himself
[01:12.36]that the basest of all things
[01:13.73]is to be afraid
[01:15.10]and, teaching himself that,
[01:16.94]forget it forever
[01:18.05]leaving no room
[01:19.12]in his workshop for anything
[01:20.59]but the old verities
[01:21.76]and truths of the heart,
[01:23.38]the universal truths
[01:25.11]lacking which any story
[01:26.48]is ephemeral and doomed
[01:28.11]love and honor
[01:29.18]and pity and pride
[01:30.14]and compassion and saCRIfice.
[01:33.13]Until he does so
[01:34.52]he labors under a curse.
[01:36.25]He writes not of love but of lust,
[01:38.54]of defeats in
[01:39.07]which nobody loses anything of value,
[01:41.42]of victories without hope
[01:43.16]and, worst of all
[01:44.02]without pity or compassion.
[01:45.90]His grief grieves on no universal bones,
[01:48.40]leaving no scars.
[01:50.03]He writes not of the heart
[01:51.15]but of the glands.
[01:53.08]Until he relearns these things,
[01:54.91]he will write as though
[01:56.17]he stood among
[01:56.94]and watched the end of man.
[01:58.76]I decline to accept the end of man.
[02:00.85]It is easy enough to say
[02:02.22]that man is immortal simply
[02:03.99]because he will endure
[02:05.09]that when the last dingdong
[02:06.63]of doom has clanged
[02:07.95]and faded from the last worthless rock
[02:09.88]hanging tideless
[02:10.85]in the last red and dying evening,
[02:12.92]that even then
[02:14.20]there will still be one more sound:
[02:15.97]that of his puny inexhaustible voice,
[02:17.80]still talking.
[02:19.32]I refuse to accept this.
[02:21.00]I believe that man
[02:21.71]will not merely endure:
[02:23.04]he will prevail.
[02:24.12]He is immortal
[02:25.29]not because he alone among creatures
[02:27.37]has an inexhaustible voice
[02:28.68]but because he has a soul
[02:30.56]a spirit capable of compassion
[02:32.96]and saCRIfice and endurance.
[02:35.38]The poet's, the writer's duty
[02:37.11]is to write about these things.
[02:38.79]It is his privilege to help man endure
[02:40.57]by lifting his heart
[02:42.34]by reminding him of the courage
[02:43.81]and honor and hope and pride
[02:45.39]and compassion and pity and saCRIfice
[02:47.68]which have been the glory of his past.
[02:49.96]The poet's voice need not merely
[02:51.85]be the record of man
[02:53.27]it can be one of the props
[02:54.64]the pillars to help him endure and prevail.