Mary later wrote, "I suppose it was my love of poetry that was the main cause of our marriage, the marriage of Roy and myself. At twelve years old I was in love with poetry. I remember reading Blake and Shelley with the greatest delight. When I met Roy he seemed to me the personification of poetry and when he recited couplets from "The Flaming Terrapin" which he had just begun to write I realized that I had met a poet in flesh and blood."