British Poet Quotes

What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!…
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!

Great minds against themselves conspire, and shun the cure they most desire.

The Lord descended from above
And bow'd the heavens high;
And underneath his feet he cast
The darkness of the sky.

On cherubs and on cherubims
Full royally he rode;
And on the wings of all the winds
Came flying all abroad.

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him.

Abraham Cowley
Abraham Cowley
A fine morning's killing, ay! All their necks wrung - all dead birds! Once they could fly - fly and swim! Fly and swim! All dead now - and sold cheap in the open market!

Spring is come home with her world-wandering feet, And all things are made young with your desires.

Francis Thompson
Francis Thompson
Cats, no less liquid than their shadows,
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat, through loopholes
Less than themselves.

Too late I stayed,—forgive the crime!
Unheeded flew the hours;
How noiseless falls the foot of time
That only treads on flowers.

And in a disused shed in Co. Wexford,
Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel,
Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole.

Derek Mahon
Derek Mahon
The terrible newly imported American doctrine that everyone ought to do something.

I saw a man this morning
Who did not wish to die;
I ask and cannot answer
If otherwise wish I.

Even the simplest poem
May destroy your immunity to human emotions.
All poems must carry a Government warning. Words
Can seriously affect your heart.

A female mind like a rude fallow lies;
No seed is sown, but weeds spontaneous rise.
As well might we expect, in winter, spring,
As land untilled a fruitful crop should bring.

Who owns this landscape?
The millionaire who bought it or
the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning
with a deer on his back?

Your worship is your furnaces, Which, like old idols, lost obscenes, Have molten bowels; your vision is Machines for making more machines.

Forget. Memory is pain trying to resurrect itself.

I do not write for the public. You are my public and I hope to convert you.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The best-concerted schemes men lay for fame, Die fast away: only themselves die faster. The far-fam'd sculptor, and the laurell'd bard, Those bold insurancers of deathless fame, Supply their little feeble aids in vain.

The within is ceaselessly becoming the without. From the state of a man's heart doth proceed the conditions of his life; his thoughts blossom into deeds, and his deeds bear the fruitage of character and destiny.

James Allen
James Allen
O yowthe allas why wilt thow nat enclyne,
And un-to reuled reform bowe thee?
Syn resoun is the verray streighte lyne
Þat ledith folk un-to felicitee.

Under this stone, Reader, survey
Dead Sir John Vanbrugh's house of clay.
Lie heavy on him, Earth! for he
Laid many heavy loads on thee!

Cricket is an ancient pastime; it ripened sweetly, it has endured noblt.

It is not, in fact, cookery books that we need half so much as cooks really trained to a knowledge of their duties.

How sweet is harmless solitude!
What can its joys control?
Tumults and noise may not intrude,
To interrupt the soul.

Name and date split in soft slate a few months obliterate. 166

Basil Bunting
Basil Bunting