Poet Quotes

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

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.

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

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Didn't I seize the fire of ideas and make them leap, tear, fly, sing

The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black firtrees are flakes
of white ash in the world's hearth.

Denise Levertov

Art is interested in life at the moment when the ray of power is passing through it.

Boris Pasternak

In loss itself I find assuagement: having lost the treasure, I've nothing to fear.

Juana Inés de la Cruz

'Qui procul hinc', the legend's writ,—
The frontier-grave is far away—
'Qui ante diem periit:
Sed miles, sed pro patria.'

Solace of the night sky,
the hardly moving
face of the clock.

Thou that swing'st upon the waving haire Of some well-filled Oaten Beard, Drunke ev'ry night with a Delicious teare, Dropt thee from Heav'n, where now th'art! The joys of Earth and Ayre are thine intire, That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye; And when thy Poppy workes, thou dost retire To thy carv'd Acorn-bed to lye.

Richard Lovelace

The country wears their going like a scar,
Today their relatives save to support and
Send others in planes for the new diaspora.

Some man of ages past
Observed their goings; and devised their titles,
Forming the constellations. For the name
Of each star singly none could tell or learn; —
So numerous are they everywhere, and many
Of the same size and color, as they roll.
Thus he bethought him to combine them so,
That, ranged in neighborhood, they might present
Images, — each taking his proper name,
And henceforth none rising to doubt or guess at.

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

The chief characteristic of folly is that it mistakes itself for wisdom.

Fray Luis de León

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.

Oft as by chance, a little while apart The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, Beams like a jewel on the breast of dawn.

Whoever interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his own fund of knowledge, makes notorious his own stock of ignorance.

When the voice of Christ speaks through the Word, then you will arise, and leave all, and follow Him.

Robert Murray M'Cheyne

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.

We have, each of us, nothing.
We will give it to each other.

Carolyn Forché

Languages are not owned
by nations but by the people who use them
and make them live.

Abdourahman Waberi

Near to Bootes the bright Crown is view'd And shines with stars of different magnitude: Or placed in front above the rest displays A vigorous light, and dwarfs surprising rays. This shone, since Theseus first his faith betray'd, The monument of the forsaken maid.

Marcus Manilius

I loved thee once. I'll love no more,
Thine be the grief, as is the blame;
Thou art not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?

If I find it painful getting out of bed in the morning, I am likely to find it harder still in five years' time. Then you have to add that, though that is undoubtedly so, it is also quite possible that you won't be there in five years.

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

Michael Schmidt