Selected Poems Quotes

“And we,
frightened, bored, wanting
only to sleep till catastrophe
has raged, clashed, seethed and gone by without us,
wanting then
to awaken in quietude without remembrance of agony,

we who in shamefaced private hope
had looked to be plucked from fire and given
a bliss we deserved for having imagined it,

is it implied that we
must protect this perversely weak
animal, whose muzzle’s nudgings
suppose there is milk to be found in us?
Must hold to our icy hearts
a shivering God?”
― Denise Levertov, Selected Poems

“I witnessed
all things quicken to color, to form
my question
not answered but given
its part
in a vast unfolding design lit
by a rising sun.”
― Denise Levertov, Selected Poems

“Can you endure
life with two brides, bridegroom?”
― Denise Levertov, Selected Poems

“holiness does not dissolve,”
― Denise Levertov, Selected Poems