In The Pale Cast of Thought, reflecting on the uncertainties of life often leads to moments of vision. This lifelong collection of verse shows how poetry can be used to come to terms with it all. There is a great variety in both form and content: Love poems, terse, radiant lyrics, narratives, fresh religious insights and meditations on nature. An eulogy for a friend who died young captures a bygone era (the optimistic period following World War II) like a mini-novel. Not only sorrow and anxiety but joy, praise, gratitude, and always the beauty and awe of nature are lovingly evoked. The author was persistent through the years in gathering up and preserving the diverse epiphanies of her inner experience.