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“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”
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“I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of catfish.”
―
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“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”
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“I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty...But I am too busy thinking about myself.”
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“I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.”
―
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“Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.”
―
―
“Said the Sun to the Moon-'When you are but a lonely white crone,
And I, a dead King in my golden armour somewhere in a dark wood,
Remember only this of our hopeless love
That never till Time is done
Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one”
―
And I, a dead King in my golden armour somewhere in a dark wood,
Remember only this of our hopeless love
That never till Time is done
Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one”
―
“Poetry is the deification of reality.”
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“I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.”
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“Said the lion to the lioness - "when you are amber dust -
No more a raging fire like the heat of the sun
(no liking but all lust) -
Remember still the flowering of the amber blood
and bone,
the rippling of bright muscles like
a sea,
Remember the rose-prickles of
bright paws
Though we shall mate no more
Till the fire of that sun
and the moon -
Cold bone are one"
Said the skeleton lying upon the
sands of time -
"The great gold planet that
is the mourning heat
of the sun
Is greater than all gold, more powerful
Than the tawny body of a lion that fire
consumes
Like all that grows or leaps...so
is the heart.
More powerful than all dust. Once
I was hercules
Or Samson, strong as the pillars of the
seas:
But the flames of the heart
Consumed me, and
the mind
Is but a foolish wind.”
―
No more a raging fire like the heat of the sun
(no liking but all lust) -
Remember still the flowering of the amber blood
and bone,
the rippling of bright muscles like
a sea,
Remember the rose-prickles of
bright paws
Though we shall mate no more
Till the fire of that sun
and the moon -
Cold bone are one"
Said the skeleton lying upon the
sands of time -
"The great gold planet that
is the mourning heat
of the sun
Is greater than all gold, more powerful
Than the tawny body of a lion that fire
consumes
Like all that grows or leaps...so
is the heart.
More powerful than all dust. Once
I was hercules
Or Samson, strong as the pillars of the
seas:
But the flames of the heart
Consumed me, and
the mind
Is but a foolish wind.”
―
“All day long you sit and sew,
Stitch life down for fear it grow,
Stitch life down for fear we guess
At the hidden ugliness.
Dusty voice that throbs with heat,
Hoping with your steel-thin beat
To put stitches in my mind,
Make it tidy, make it kind,
You shall not: I'll keep it free
Though you turn earth, sky and sea
To a patchwork quilt to keep
Your mind snug and warm in sleep!”
―
Stitch life down for fear it grow,
Stitch life down for fear we guess
At the hidden ugliness.
Dusty voice that throbs with heat,
Hoping with your steel-thin beat
To put stitches in my mind,
Make it tidy, make it kind,
You shall not: I'll keep it free
Though you turn earth, sky and sea
To a patchwork quilt to keep
Your mind snug and warm in sleep!”
―
“Answers
I kept my answers small and kept them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bullwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I kept from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, still I hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow.
And all the great conclusions coming near”
―
I kept my answers small and kept them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bullwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I kept from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, still I hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow.
And all the great conclusions coming near”
―
“Your soul: pure glucose edged with hints
Of tentative and half-soiled tints”
―
Of tentative and half-soiled tints”
―
“The fusty showman fumbles, must
Fit in a particle of dust
The universe, for fear it gain
Its freedom from my cube of brain.
Yet dust bears seeds that grow to grace
Behind my crude-striped wooden face
As I, a puppet tinsel-pink
Leap on my springs, learn how to think—
Till like the trembling golden stalk
Of some long-petalled star, I walk
Through the dark heavens, and the dew
Falls on my eyes and sense thrills through.”
―
Fit in a particle of dust
The universe, for fear it gain
Its freedom from my cube of brain.
Yet dust bears seeds that grow to grace
Behind my crude-striped wooden face
As I, a puppet tinsel-pink
Leap on my springs, learn how to think—
Till like the trembling golden stalk
Of some long-petalled star, I walk
Through the dark heavens, and the dew
Falls on my eyes and sense thrills through.”
―
“Solo For Ear-Trumpet
The carriage brushes through the bright
Leaves (violent jets from life to light);
Strong polished speed is plunging, heaves
Between the showers of bright hot leaves
The window-glasses glaze our faces
And jar them to the very basis —
But they could never put a polish
Upon my manners or abolish
My most distinct disinclination
For calling on a rich relation!
In her house — (bulwark built between
The life man lives and visions seen) —
The sunlight hiccups white as chalk,
Grown drunk with emptiness of talk,
And silence hisses like a snake —
Invertebrate and rattling ache….
Then suddenly Eternity
Drowns all the houses like a sea
And down the street the Trump of Doom
Blares madly — shakes the drawing-room
Where raw-edged shadows sting forlorn
As dank dark nettles. Down the horn
Of her ear-trumpet I convey
The news that 'It is Judgment Day!'
'Speak louder: I don't catch, my dear.'
I roared: 'It is the Trump we hear!'
'The What?' 'THE TRUMP!' 'I shall complain!
…. the boy-scouts practising again.”
―
The carriage brushes through the bright
Leaves (violent jets from life to light);
Strong polished speed is plunging, heaves
Between the showers of bright hot leaves
The window-glasses glaze our faces
And jar them to the very basis —
But they could never put a polish
Upon my manners or abolish
My most distinct disinclination
For calling on a rich relation!
In her house — (bulwark built between
The life man lives and visions seen) —
The sunlight hiccups white as chalk,
Grown drunk with emptiness of talk,
And silence hisses like a snake —
Invertebrate and rattling ache….
Then suddenly Eternity
Drowns all the houses like a sea
And down the street the Trump of Doom
Blares madly — shakes the drawing-room
Where raw-edged shadows sting forlorn
As dank dark nettles. Down the horn
Of her ear-trumpet I convey
The news that 'It is Judgment Day!'
'Speak louder: I don't catch, my dear.'
I roared: 'It is the Trump we hear!'
'The What?' 'THE TRUMP!' 'I shall complain!
…. the boy-scouts practising again.”
―
“In private life she was not in the least what her calumniators would have wished her to be. She was very quiet, had a great natural dignity, and was extremely intelligent. She was also exceedingly sensitive.”
―
―
“Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.”
―
―
“After the long and portentous eclipse of the patient sun
The sudden spring began”
― Green Song and Other Poems
The sudden spring began”
― Green Song and Other Poems
“The winter, the animal sleep of the earth is over
And in the warmth of the affirming sun
All beings, beasts, men planets, waters, move
Freed from the imprisoning frost, acclaim their love
That is the light of the sun.”
― Green Song and Other Poems
And in the warmth of the affirming sun
All beings, beasts, men planets, waters, move
Freed from the imprisoning frost, acclaim their love
That is the light of the sun.”
― Green Song and Other Poems
“Still falls the Rain -
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss -
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross”
― The Canticle of the Rose: Poems 1917-1949
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss -
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross”
― The Canticle of the Rose: Poems 1917-1949
“The rhythms of our lives
Are those of the ripening, dying of the seasons”
― Green Song and Other Poems
Are those of the ripening, dying of the seasons”
― Green Song and Other Poems
“And your arms and your breasts are my Rivers of Life”
― Green Song and Other Poems
― Green Song and Other Poems
