Donald Justice Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.

Donald Justice
Soon the purple dark must bruise
Lily and bleeding-heart and rose,
And the little Cupid lose
Eyes and ears and chin and nose

Donald Justice
Between the lines it must have hurt
To see the neighborhood go down,
Your neighbor in his undershirt
At dusk come out to mow his lawn.

Donald Justice
Merry the green, the green hill shall be merry.
Hungry, the owlet shall seek out the mouse
And Jack his Joan, but they shall never marry And snow shall fly, the big flakes fat and furry.
Lonely, the traveler shall seek out the house,
And Jack his Joan, but they shall never marry. Weary the soldiers go, and come back weary,
Up a green hill and down the withered hill,
And Jack from Joan, but they shall never marry.

Donald Justice
You neither can nor should understand what it means.
Listen, it comes without guitar,
Neither in rags nor in any purple fashion.
And there is nothing in it to comfort you.

Donald Justice
How shall I speak of Doom, and ours in special, But as of something altogether common?

Donald Justice
This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.

Donald Justice
The artist will have had his revenge for being made to wait,
A revenge not only necessary but right and clever--
Simply to leave him out of the scene forever.

Donald Justice
There is no way to ease the burden. The voyage leads on from harm to harm, A land of others and of silence.

Donald Justice