Collected Poems Quotes

“To live at all is miracle enough.”
― Mervyn Peake, Collected Poems

“I, while the gods laugh, the world's vortex am;
Maelström of passions in that hidden sea
Whose waves of all-time lap the coasts of me;
And in small compass the dark waters cram.

- I, While the Gods Laugh, the World's Vortex Am”
― Mervyn Peake, Collected Poems

“I am too rich already, for my eyes mint gold.

- Coloured Money”
― Mervyn Peake, Collected Poems

“If seeing her an hour before her last
Weak cough into all blackness I could yet
Be held by chalk-white walls

- The Consumptive. Belsen 1945”
― Mervyn Peake, Collected Poems

“Here, are the stiffening hills, here, the rich cargo
Congealed in the dark arteries,
Old veins
That hold Glamorgan's blood.
The midnight miner in the secret seams,
Limb, life, and bread.

- Rhondda Valley”
― Mervyn Peake, Collected Poems

“Each day we live is a glass room
Until we break it with the thrusting
Of the spirit and pass through
The splintered walls to the green pastures
Where the birds and buds are breaking
Into fabulous song and hue
By the still waters.

- Each Day We Live is a Glass Room”
― Mervyn Peake, Collected Poems

“Before man's bravery I bow my head:
More so when valour is unnatural
And fear, a bat between the shoulder-blades
Flaps its cold webs - but I am ill at ease
With propaganda glory, and the lies
Of statesmen and the lords of slippery trades.

- Before Man's Bravery I Bow My Head May 1941.”
― Mervyn Peake, Collected Poems

“This is the darkness: I have known great storms
Scourge the long day - but this is motionless
And sterile: this is something featureless
The blind brain turning upon drugs and worms.

This is the Darkness”
― Mervyn Peake, Collected Poems