Poet Quotes

Threadbare his songs seem now, to lettered ken: They were worn threadbare next the hearts of men.

I know I could enchain him with a smile:
And lead him captive with a gentle word,
I scorn my look should ever man beguile,
Or other speech, than meaning to afford.

Elizabeth Tanfield Cary

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
And some are treasured for their markings –
They cause the eyes to melt
Or the body to shriek without pain.

It has the original mouth but remains wordless;
It is surrounded by a magnificent mound of hair.
Sentient beings can get completely lost in it
But it is also the birthplace of all the Buddhas of the ten thousand worlds.

Yet this is the watch by night.
Let us all accept new strength, and
real tenderness. And at dawn, armed
with glowing patience, we will enter
the cities of glory.

The more uniform a man's voice, step, manner of conversation, handwriting--the more quiet, uniform, settled, his actions, his character.

Johann Kaspar Lavater

It goes without saying that a fine short poem can have the resonance and depth of an entire novel.

Poetry is a collaborative art, and yet—as it is being created—the most solitary and 'individual' of activities.

Michael Schmidt

Oft as by chance, a little while apart The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, Beams like a jewel on the breast of dawn.

Let the person who wins be him who says what is most desirable for the city.

At length corruption, like a general flood (So long by watchful ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun.

Is it not easy to conceive the World in your Mind? To think the Heavens fair? The Sun Glorious? The Earth fruitful? The Air Pleasant? The Sea Profitable? And the Giver bountiful? Yet these are the things which it is difficult to retain. For could we always be sensible of their use and value, we should be always delighted with their wealth and glory.

Thomas Traherne

Yellow melon flowers Crawl beneath the withered peach-trees; A date-palm throws its heavy fronds of steel Against the scoured metallic sky.

John Gould Fletcher

Like as the armed knight
Appointed to the field,
With this world will I fight,
And faith shall be my shield…
I am not she that list
My anchor to let fall,
For every drizzling mist
My ship substantial.

Whoever he was who first depicted Amor as a boy, don't you think it was a wonderful touch? He was the first to see that lovers live without sense.

Not for no cold did freeze,
Nor any cloud beguile
Th'eternal flowering spring

My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls.

Robert Southwell

The fool that eats till he is sick must fast till he is well.

George Walter Thornbury

The sweetest pleasures soonest cloy, And its best flavour temperance gives to joy.

And also there's a little star
So white a virgin's it must be:—
Perhaps the lamp my love in heaven
Hangs out to light the way for me.

The children eat and wriggle and laugh,
The two old ladies stroke their silk;
But the cat is grown small and thin with desire,
Transformed to a creeping lust for milk.

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

Gerard Manley Hopkins

I saw God! Do you doubt it?
Do you dare to doubt it?
I saw the Almighty Man! His hand
Was resting on a mountain!

James Kenneth Stephen

Goodbye,
you who are, for me, the postmarks again
of shattered towns--Xenia, Burnt Cabins,
Hornell--
their loneliness
given away in poems, only their solitude kept.

There are fools who seek to understand the secrets of nature.