H. D., “Oread” Whirl up, sea –whirl your pointed pines,splash your great pineson our rocks,hurl your green over us,cover us with your pools of fir.
Tag: Quotes
H. D., “Orchard”
H. D., “Orchard” I saw the first pearas it fell –the honey-seeking, golden-banded,the yellow swarmwas not more fleet than I,(spare us from loveliness)and I fell prostratecrying:you have flayed uswith your blossoms,spare us the beautyof fruit-trees. The honey-seekingpaused not,the air thundered their song,and I alone was prostrate. O rough-hewngod of the orchard,I bring you an offering […]
Amy Lowell, “Thompson’s Lunch Room—Grand Central Station”
Amy Lowell, “Thompson’s Lunch Room—Grand Central Station” STUDY IN WHITES Wax-white—Floor, ceiling, walls.Ivory shadowsOver the pavementPolished to cream surfacesBy constant sweeping.The big room is coloured like the petalsOf a great magnolia,And has a patinaOf flower bloomWhich makes it shine dimlyUnder the electric lamps.Chairs are ranged in rowsLike sepia seedsWaiting fulfilment.The chalk-white spot of a cook’s […]
Amy Lowell, “The Pike”
Amy Lowell, “The Pike” In the brown water,Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine,Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds,A pike dozed.Lost among the shadows of stemsHe lay unnoticed.Suddenly he flicked his tail,And a green-and-copper brightnessRan under the water. Out from under the reedsCame the olive-green light,And orange flashed upThrough the sun-thickened water.So the […]
Charles Reznikoff, “Millinery District”
Charles Reznikoff, “Millinery District” The clouds, piled in rows like merchandise, become dark; lights are lit in the lofts; the milliners, tacking bright flowers on straw shapes, say, glancing out of the windows; It is going to snow; and soon they hear the snow scratching the panes. By night it is high on the sills. […]
Delmore Schwartz, “The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me”
Delmore Schwartz, “The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me” “the withness of the body” The heavy bear who goes with me, A manifold honey to smear his face, Clumsy and lumbering here and there, The central ton of every place, The hungry beating brutish one In love with candy, anger, and sleep, Crazy factotum, dishevelling […]
Delmore Schwartz, “In the Naked Bed, in Plato’s Cave”
Delmore Schwartz, “In the Naked Bed, in Plato’s Cave” In the naked bed, in Plato’s cave, Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall, Carpenters hammered under the shaded window, Wind troubled the window curtains all night long, A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding, Their freights covered, as usual. The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram […]
Walt Whitman, “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim”
Walt Whitman, “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim” A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless, As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent, Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought […]
Thom Gunn, “On the Move”
Thom Gunn, “On the Move” “Man, you gotta Go.” The blue jay scuffling in the bushes follows Some hidden purpose, and the gust of birds That spurts across the field, the wheeling swallows, Has nested in the trees and undergrowth. Seeking their instinct, or their poise, or both, One moves with an uncertain violence Under […]
Thom Gunn, “No Speech from the Scaffold”
Thom Gunn, “No Speech from the Scaffold” There will be no speech from the scaffold, the scene must be its own commentary. The glossy chipped surface of the block is like something for kitchen use. And the masked man with his chopper: we know him: he works in a warehouse nearby. Last, the prisoner, he […]
Yvor Winters, “Time and the Garden”
Yvor Winters, “Time and the Garden” The spring has darkened with activity. The future gathers in vine, bush, and tree: Persimmon, walnut, loquat, fig, and grape, Degrees and kinds of color, taste, and shape. These will advance in their due series, space The season like a tranquil dwelling-place. And yet excitement swells me, vein by […]
Yvor Winters, “The Slow Pacific Swell”
Yvor Winters, “The Slow Pacific Swell” Far out of sight forever stands the sea, Bounding the land with pale tranquillity. When a small child, I watched it from a hill At thirty miles or more. The vision still Lies in the eye, soft blue and far away: The rain has washed the dust from April […]
Czeslaw Milosz, “My Faithful Mother Tongue”
Czeslaw Milosz, “My Faithful Mother Tongue” Faithful mother tongue, I have been serving you. Every night, I used to set before you little bowls of colors so you could have your birch, your cricket, your finch as preserved in my memory. This lasted many years. You were my native land; I lacked any other. I […]
Eavan Boland, “The Mother Tongue”
Eavan Boland, “The Mother Tongue” The old pale ditch can still be seen less than half a mile from my house – its ancient barrier of mud and brambles which mireth next unto Irishmen is now a mere rise of coarse grass, a rowan tree and some thinned-out spruce, where a child is playing at […]
Genevieve Taggard, “To One Loved Wholly Within Wisdom”
Genevieve Taggard, “To One Loved Wholly Within Wisdom” Someone will reap you like a field, Pile your gathered plunder, Garner what you bring to yield, Turn your beauty under; In cruel usages, in such Sickle-cutting, heaping; Certain women toil too much, Wearing of their reaping; Someone else may winnow you; Someone else may plunder; I […]
Genevieve Taggard, “To the Powers of Desolation”
Genevieve Taggard, “To the Powers of Desolation” O mortal boy we cannot stop The leak in that great wall where death seeps in With hands or bodies, frantic mouths, or sleep. Over the wall, over the wall’s top I have seen rising waters, waters of desolation. From my despair bibles are written, children begotten; Women […]
Archibald MacLeish, “Voyage West”
Archibald MacLeish, “Voyage West” There was a time for discoveries — For the headlands looming above in the First light and the surf and the Crying of gulls: for the curve of the Coast north into secrecy. That time is past. The last lands have been peopled. The oceans are known now. Señora: once the […]
The Best of Albert Camus’s Notebooks
A random scattering, some barely aphorisms, from the first two volumes of the notebooks of Albert Camus. They are gold: One must not cut oneself off from the world. No one who lives in the sunlight makes a failure of his life. My whole effort, whatever the situation, misfortune or disillusion, must be to make […]
20th Century Poetry #4: Laurence Binyon
One way to understand where poetry is now is to see where it was a hundred years ago. Every Saturday I’ll be posting not the best, but at least the most representative, poems from the last century, where we can see poetry constantly changing. You can read the other entries here. Here, with Laurence […]
William Blake Chooses Eternity
A wonderful paragraph from Peter Ackroyd’s biography of William Blake, where he shows how the poet slowly came to accept that if he was writing for anyone other than himself, it was for posterity; and how he charged ahead nevertheless: His independence meant that he could preserve his vision beyond all taint—and that integrity is […]
20th Century Poetry #3: W. H. Davies
One way to understand where poetry is now is to see where it was a hundred years ago. Every Saturday I’ll be posting not the best, but at least the most representative, poems from the last century, where we can see poetry constantly changing. You can read the other entries here. The Rat “That woman […]
20th Century Poetry #2: A. E. Housman
One way to understand where poetry is now is to see where it was a hundred years ago. Every Saturday I’ll be posting not the best, but at least the most representative, poems from the last century, where we can see poetry constantly changing. You can read the other entries here. “Loveliest of trees, […]
Tim Miller 
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