Rickword replied, "I have waited three days and three nights to be able to tell you quite coolly that the poem is magnificent. One doesn't often find anything to overwhelm one's expectations but this did completely... I know of "no one living" who could write in such a sustained and intense poetical manner... Lots of things might have weighed against my liking it (particularly your philosophy of sweat) but the sheer fecundity of images ravished my lady-like prejudices... Good luck and ten thousand thanks for such a poem."