Poet Quotes

For him no silver cressets shed their light,
No eager joy-bells sounded through the night
From city minster, or from village tower;
No loud "hurrahs," sent from deep-chested men,
Lifted the midnight mist from off the glen
In celebration of his natal hour.

John Stanyan Bigg

The little street
Into its gloom retires, secluded and shy.

Laurence Binyon

Nature repeats herself, or almost does: repeat, repeat, repeat, revise, revise, revise.

Elizabeth Bishop

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.

Tell me thou all pervading mind,
When I this life forsake,
Must ev'ry tender tie unbind,
Each sweet connection break?

Ann Eliza Bleecker

Hell and damnation,
life is such fun
with a ragged greatcoat
and a Jerry gun!

Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look, The fields his study, nature was his book.

Robert Bloomfield

Ay, this is the famed rock, which Hercules
And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door
England stands sentry.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad; I found in Him a resting place, and he has made me glad.

Good free verse is not at all easy to write, for there is no repetitive beat to lull the reader's critical faculty, much pattern and discipline is to be found in it, though the pattern of sounds and choice of exact words, gives it its beauty.

Marjorie Boulton

The Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

Francis William Bourdillon

True 'tis, when unexpectedly we find
The beautiful, it charms the healthy mind.

Francesco Bracciolini

Give me, give me God's own country! there to live and there to die,

When I behold the heavens as in their prime,
And then the earth (though old) still clad in green,
The stones and trees, insensible of time,
Nor age nor wrinkle on their front are seen

Anne Bradstreet

That which we look on with unselfish love
And true humility is surely ours,
Even as a lake looks at the stars above
And makes within itself a heaven of stars.

Mary Gardiner Brainard

I fear freedom. I, above all, fear the freedom that is above all feardom.

Giannina Braschi

Apollinaire asserted that Chirico's first paintings were done under the influence of kinesthetic disorders (migraines, colic, etc.)

From Universal Mind the first-born atoms draw their function, whose rich chemistry the plants transmute to make organic life, whereon animals feed to fashion sight and sense and give service to man, who sprung from them is conscient in his last degree of ministry unto God, the Universal Mind, whither all effect returneth whence it first began.

If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet.

Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Love sells the proud heart's citadel to fate.

I think it must be lonely to be God.
Nobody loves a master. No.

Gwendolyn Brooks

My Lord Tomnoddy is thirty-four;
The Earl can last but a few years more.
My Lord in the Peers will take his place:
Her Majesty's councils his words will grace.
Office he'll hold and patronage sway;
Fortunes and lives he will vote away;
And what are his qualifications?—ONE!
He's the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son.

Robert Barnabas Brough

Now spring returns; but not to me returns
The vernal joy my better years have known;
Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns,
And all the joys of life with health have flown.

Only one thing abides: an infinite beauty that passes from form to form, eternally changed and revealed afresh.

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