Poet Quotes

For ivy climbs the crumbling hall To decorate decay.

Philip James Bailey

It is so seldom that a young fellow has any inclination for the company of an old man...

Painters have often taught writers how to see.

Storys to rede ar delitabill,
Suppos that thai be nocht bot fabill.

To be so closely caught up in the teeth of things that they kill you, no matter how infinitesimally kill you, is, truly, to be a poet: and to be a poet in fact it is additionally necessary that you should possess the tongues and instruments with which to record this series of infinitesimal deaths.

As I go musing through this mournful land
Soothed by the pine-tree's solemn harmony,
Thy well-loved image comes and walks by me.
I seem to hold thee by the gentle hand
And talk of things I dimly understand,
That thy dear spirit set to mine may be
As to an intricate lock the simple key.

What men have done can still be done
And shall be done today.

My flocks feed not, my ewes breed not,
My rams speed not, all is amiss.

Richard Barnfield

The wild geese—the wild geese,—'tis long since they flew,
O'er the billowy ocean's bright bosom of blue.

Michael Joseph Barry

The universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being.

Life is a slow suicide, and it is happening to every intellectual.

Shiv Kumar Batalvi

Forever seeking, never found,
In this wide varied scene;
Sole object of unceasing search,
While in this low terrene.
Yet vain the search, if in the heart
Some lurking passion dwell;
For this will hang with cypress wreath
Retirement's secret cell.
In vain the outward scene is calm,
In vain the world we fly;
If thou, in pure religion's garb,
Thy friendly aid deny.

If wine were to disappear from human production, I believe it would cause an absence, a failure in health and intellect, a void much more terrifying than all the recesses and the deviations for which wine is regarded as responsible.

Charles Baudelaire

This is the sanctification of your studies: when they are devoted to God, and when He is the end, the object, and the life of them all.

It is a fact that not once in all my life have I gone out for a walk. I have been taken out for walks; but that is another matter.

All quiet along the Potomac, they say,
Except now and then a stray picket
Is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
'Tis nothing—a private or two now and then
Will not count in the news of the battle;
Not an officer lost—only one of the men,
Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle.

The music was by James Hewitt

Ethel Lynn Beers

I speak to you in one tongue/ but every moment that ever mattered to me/ occurred in another language.

As a friend to the children commend me the Yak. You will find it exactly the thing: It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back, Or lead it about with a string.

Professor Dewar
Is a better man than you are,
None of you asses
Can condense gases.

Of James Dewar

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Come, swift-wing'd Fancy, airy maid,
In varied, dazzling vest array'd,
Inspire thy vot'ry's lay;
Grant me thy flow'ry walks to tread,
To range thy summer-painted mead,
Or near thy fountain play.
Now led by thy resistless hand,
Or guided by thy fairy wand,
O'er yet untrodden space;
Or on thy pinions borne along,
The bright Ideas' flitting throngs
Pursue th' aerial race.

Elizabeth Bentley

Gaily! gaily! close our ranks!
Arm! Advance!
Hope of France!
Gaily! gaily! close our ranks!
Onward! Onward! Gauls and Franks!

Pierre-Jean de Béranger

This is not love, such has only its name and semblance, which loves no thing unless it gains from it.

Bernart de Ventadorn

Let him look to it, who is pleased with the game of Tarocco, that the only signification of this word Tarocco, is stupid, foolish, simple, fit only to be used by Bakers, Coblers, and the vulgar, to play at most for the fourth part of a Carlino, at Tarocchi, or at Trionfi, or any Sminckiate whatever: which in every way signifies only foolery and idleness, feasting the eye with the Sun, and the Moon, and the twelve (signs) as children do.

Francesco Berni

she
had
then
could
cram
had
by
she
am

Charles Bernstein

The Devil is a Five-headed
Snake, says the father.
The son says, Nay, it's a Six-headed one. And then their hearts burn
with hate for each others —
and they live apart for many years.

Subramanya Bharathi