Quotes by Poets - Page 225

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,Live fairy-gifts fading away,Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,Let thy loveliness fade as it will,And around the dear ruin each wish of my heartWould entwine itself verdantly still.It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,That the fervor and faith of a soul may be known,To which time will but make thee more dear!No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,But as truly loves on to the close,As the sunflower turns on her god when he setsThe same look which she turned when he rose!
Thomas Moore
The way you walk is slash and burn.Like understatement's now a crime.
Justin Quinn
the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and the men drink too much and nobody finds the one but keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh.
Charles Bukowski
The birthing wolf,Her heart fed with tenderness,Gave forth from ripe brown nipples,Food to feed the universe.
Roman Payne
The Last LeafI saw him once before,As he passed by the door,And againThe pavement stones resound,As he totters o'er the groundWith his cane.They say that in his prime,Ere the pruning-knife of TimeCut him down,Not a better man was foundBy the Crier on his roundThrough the town.But now he walks the streets,And looks at all he meetsSad and wan,And he shakes his feeble head,That it seems as if he said,"They are gone."The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom,And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.My grandmamma has saidPoor old lady, she is deadLong agoThat he had a Roman nose,And his cheek was like a roseIn the snow;But now his nose is thin,And it rests upon his chinLike a staff,And a crook is in his back,And a melancholy crackIn his laugh.I know it is a sinFor me to sit and grinAt him here;But the old three-cornered hat,And the breeches, and all that,Are so queer!And if I should live to beThe last leaf upon the treeIn the spring,Let them smile, as I do now,At the old forsaken boughWhere I cling.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
To harden the earththe rocks took charge:instantlythey grew wings:the rocksthat soared:the survivorsflew upthe lightning bolt,screamed in the night,a watermark,a violet sword,a meteor.The succulentskyhad not only clouds,not only space smelling of oxygen,but an earthly stoneflashing here and therechanged into a dove,changed into a bell,into immensity, into a piercingwind:into a phosphorescent arrow,into salt of the sky.
Pablo Neruda
I.Don't trace out your profile--forget your side view--all that is outer stuff.II.Look for your other halfwho walks always next to youand tends to be who you aren't.
Antonio Machado
The little boy was looking for his voice.(The king of the crickets had it.)In a drop of waterthe little boy was looking for his voice.I do not want it for speaking with;I will make a ring of itso that he may wear my silenceon his little fingerIn a drop of waterthe little boy was looking for his voice.(The captive voice, far away,put on a cricket's clo
Federico García Lorca
Every poem is an infant labored into birth and I am drenched with sweating effort, tired from the pain and hurt of being a man, in the poem I transform myself into a woman.
Jimmy Santiago Baca
THE POEMS OF OUR CLIMATEIClear water in a brilliant bowl, Pink and white carnations. The lightIn the room more like a snowy air, Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snowAt the end of winter when afternoons return.Pink and white carnations - one desiresSo much more than that. The day itselfIs simplified: a bowl of white, Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,With nothing more than the carnations there.IISay even that this complete simplicityStripped one of all one's torments, concealedThe evilly compounded, vital IAnd made it fresh in a world of white,A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,Still one would want more, one would need more,More than a world of white and snowy scents.IIIThere would still remain the never-resting mind,So that one would want to escape, come backTo what had been so long composed.The imperfect is our paradise.Note that, in this bitterness, delight,Since the imperfect is so hot in us,Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.
Wallace Stevens
His brow is seamed with line and scar;His cheek is red and dark as wine;The fires as of a Northern starBeneath his cap of sable shine.His right hand, bared of leathern glove,Hangs open like an iron gin,You stoop to see his pulses move,To hear the blood sweep out and in.He looks some king, so solitaryIn earnest thought he seems to stand,As if across a lonely seaHe gazed impatient of the land.Out of the noisy centuriesThe foolish and the fearful fade;Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes,Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.
Walter de la Mare
Yawn...I believe that I love sleepmuch more than anybody I’ve evermet.I have the ability to sleep for2 or 3 days andnights.I will go to bed at any givenmoment.I often confused my girlfriendsthis way—say it would be about onethirtyin the afternoon:“well, I’m going to bed now, I’mgoing to sleep…”most of them wouldn’t mind, theywould go to bed with methinking I was hinting forsexbut I would just turn my backand snore off.this, of course, could explainwhy so many of my girlfriendsleft me.as for doctors, they were neverany help:“listen, I have this desire togo to bed and sleep, almost allthe time.what is wrong withme?”“do you get enough exercise?”“yes…”“are you getting enoughnourishment?”“yes…”they always handed me aprescriptionwhich I threw awaybetween the office and theparking lot.it’s a curious maladybecause I can’t sleep between6 p.m. and midnight.it must occur aftermidnightand when I ariseit can never bebefore noon.and should the phone ringsay at 10:30 a.m.I go into a mad ragedon’t even ask who the callerisscream into thephone: “WHAT ARE YOUCALLING ME FOR AT THISHOUR!”hangup…every person, I suppose, hastheir eccentricitiesbut in an effort to benormalin the world’seyethey overcome themand thereforedestroy theirspecial calling.I’ve kept mineand do believe thatthey have lent generously tomy existence.I think it’s the main reason Idecided to become awriter: I can typeanytime andsleepwhen I damn wellplease.
Charles Bukowski
One sister for sale,One sister for sale,One crying and spying young sister for saleI'm really not kidding so who'll start the biddingDo I hear a dollar?A nickle?A penny?Oh isnt there isnt there isnt there anyOne person who will buy this sister for saleThis crying spying old young sister for sale.
Shel Silverstein
THE ONE WHO STAYEDYou should have heard the old men cry,You should have heard the biddiesWhen that sad stranger raised his fluteAnd piped away the kiddies.Katy, Tommy, Meg and BobFollowed, skipped gaily,Red-haired Ruth, my brother Rob,And little crippled Bailey,John and Nils and Cousin Claire,Dancin', spinnin', turnin','Cross the hills to God knows where-They never came returnin'.'Cross the hills to God knows whereThe piper pranced, a leadin'Each child in Hamlin Town but me,And I stayed home unheedin'.My papa says that I was blestFor if that music found me,I'd be witch-cast like all the rest.This town grows old around me.I cannot say I did not hearThat sound so haunting hollow-I heard, I heard, I heard it clear...I was afraid to follow.
Shel Silverstein
I am nobody, even if I say I am this or that.
Santosh Kalwar
Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The mind-is not the heart.I may yet live, as I know others live,To wish in vain to let go with the mind-Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells meThat I need learn to let go with the heart.
Robert Frost
Tumbling-hair picker of buttercups violetsdandelionsAnd the big bullying daisies through the field wonderfulwith eyes a little sorryAnother comes also picking flowers
E.E. Cummings
DAISIESIt is possible, I suppose that sometimewe will learn everythingthere is to learn: what the world is, for example,and what it means. I think this as I am crossingfrom one field to another, in summer, and themockingbird is mocking me, as one who eitherknows enough already or knows enough to beperfectly content not knowing. Song being bornof quest he knows this: he must turn silentwere he suddenly assaulted with answers. Insteadoh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselesslyunanswered. At my feet the white-petalled daisies displaythe small suns of their center piece, their -- if you don'tmind my saying so -- their hearts. Of courseI could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale andnarrow and hidden in the roots. What do I know?But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly;for example -- I think thisas I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch --the suitability of the field for the daisies, and thedaisies for the field.
Mary Oliver
An Irish Airman foresees his DeathI Know that I shall meet my fatet Somewhere among the clouds above;t Those that I fight I do not hatet Those that I guard I do not love, My country is Kiltartan Cross,My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,t No likely end could bring them losst Or leave them happier than before.t Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,t Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,t A lonely impulse of delightt Drove to this tumult in the clouds;t I balanced all, brought all to mind,t The years to come seemed waste of breath,A waste of breath the years behindt In balance with this life, this death.
W.B. Yeats
How clear, how lovely bright,How beautiful to sight Those beams of morning play;How heaven laughs out with gleeWhere, like a bird set free,Up from the eastern sea Soars the delightful day.To-day I shall be strong,No more shall yield to wrong, Shall squander life no more;Days lost, I know not how,I shall retrieve them now;Now I shall keep the vow I never kept before.Ensanguining the skiesHow heavily it dies Into the west away;Past touch and sight and soundNot further to be found,How hopeless under ground Falls the remorseful day.
A.E. Housman
The whole idea of it makes me feellike I'm coming down with something,something worse than any stomach acheor the headaches I get from reading in bad light--a kind of measles of the spirit,a mumps of the psyche,a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.You tell me it is too early to be looking back,but that is because you have forgottenthe perfect simplicity of being oneand the beautiful complexity introduced by two.But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.At four I was an Arabian wizard.I could make myself invisibleby drinking a glass of milk a certain way.At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.But now I am mostly at the windowwatching the late afternoon light.Back then it never fell so solemnlyagainst the side of my tree house,and my bicycle never leaned against the garageas it does today,all the dark blue speed drained out of it.This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,time to turn the first big number.It seems only yesterday I used to believethere was nothing under my skin but light.If you cut me I could shine.But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,I skin my knees. I bleed.
Billy Collins
Sour MilkYou can't make itturn sweetagain. Onceit was an innocent colorlike the flowers of wild strawberries,and its texture was simplewould pass through a clean cheesecloth,its taste was fresh.And nowwith nothing more guilty that the passage of timeto chide it with,the same substancehas turned sour and lumpy.The sour milkmakes interesting & delicious doughs,can be carried to a further state of bacterial actionto create new foods,can in its own rightbe considered complicated and more interesting in textureto one who studies it closely,like a map of the world.Butto most of us:it is spoiled.Sour.We throw it out,down the drain-not in the backyard-careful not to spill anybecause the smell is strong.A good cook would be shocked with the waste.But we do not live in a world of good cooks.I am the milk.Time passes.You cannot make it turn sweetagain.I sit guiltily on the refrigerator shelftrembling with hope for a cookwho dreams of waffles,biscuits, dumplingsand other delicious breadsfearing the modern housewifewho will lift me off the shelf and with one deft twistof a wrist...you know the rest.You are the milk.When it is your turnremember,there is nothing more than the passage of timewe can chide you with.
Diane Wakoski
...like that star of the waning summer who beyond all stars rises bathed in the ocean stream to glitter in brilliance.
Homer
They're both convincedthat a sudden passion joined them.Such certainty is beautiful,but uncertainty is more beautiful still.Since they'd never met before, they're surethat there'd been nothing between them.But what's the word from the streets, staircases, hallways--perhaps they've passed by each other a million times?I want to ask themif they don't remember--a moment face to facein some revolving door?perhaps a "sorry" muttered in a crowd?a curt "wrong number" caught in the receiver?but I know the answer.No, they don't remember.They'd be amazed to hearthat Chance has been toying with themnow for years.Not quite ready yetto become their Destiny,it pushed them close, drove them apart,it barred their path,stifling a laugh,and then leaped aside.There were signs and signals,even if they couldn't read them yet.Perhaps three years agoor just last Tuesdaya certain leaf flutteredfrom one shoulder to another?Something was dropped and then picked up.Who knows, maybe the ball that vanishedinto childhood's thicket?There were doorknobs and doorbellswhere one touch had covered another beforehand.Suitcases checked and standing side by side.One night, perhaps, the same dream,grown hazy by morning.Every beginningis only a sequel, after all,and the book of eventsis always open halfway through.
Wisława Szymborska
Knock! knock!who's there?me!me who?that's right?what's right?meehoo!that's what I want to know!what's what you want to know?me who?yes, exactly!exactly what?yes, I have exactlywatt on a chain!exactly what on a chain?yes!yes what?no, exactlywatt!that's what I want to know!I told you-exactlywatt!exactly what?yes!yes what?yes it's with me.what's with you?exactlywatt-that's what with me.me who?yes!go away!knock knock...
Shel Silverstein
TREE HOUSEA tree house, a free house,A secret you and me house,A high up in the leafy branchesCozy as can be house.A street house, a neat house,Be sure to wipe your feet houseIs not my kind of house at all- Let's go live in a tree house.
Shel Silverstein
Sickness awakens sadness sleeps- Moments of aloneness results into peace.
Santosh Kalwar
Darkness all around, smoke in between my fingers, all you have given me dear, sorrow and sadness to sing here.
Santosh Kalwar
Some say an army of horsemensome an army on footothers say ships laden for warare the fairest things on earth.But I say the fairest sighton this dark earthis the face of the one you love.Nor is it hard to understand:love has humbled the heartsof the proudest queens.And I would rather see you now stepping over my thresholdthan any soldier greaved in gold or any iron-beaked ship.
Alison Croggon
And now dear little children, who may this story read, To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed: Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye, And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.
Mary Howitt
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloudAnd goes down burning into the gulf below,No voice in nature is heard to cry aloudAt what has happened. Birds, at least must knowIt is the change to darkness in the sky.Murmuring something quiet in her breast,One bird begins to close a faded eye;Or overtaken too far from his nest,Hurrying low above the grove, some waifSwoops just in time to his remembered tree.At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!Now let the night be dark for all of me.Let the night be too dark for me to seeInto the future. Let what will be, be.
Robert Frost
Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles: they are by somebody who can loveand who shall be continually reborn, a human being.
E.E. Cummings
The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they're given wings.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Parting is all we know of Heaven,and all we need of Hell.
Emily Dickinson
For I dance And drink and sing,Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing.If thought is lifeAnd strength and breathAnd the wantOf thought is deathThen am IA happy flyIf I liveOr if I die
William Blake
I want to rip off your logic and make passionate sense to you. I want to ride in the swing of your hips. My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks, blazing your limbs into parts of speech.
Jeffrey McDaniel
It seems only yesterday I used to believethere was nothing under my skin but light.If you cut me I could shine.
Billy Collins
But first, on earth as vampire sent,Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent,Then ghastly haunt thy native place,And suck the blood of all thy race.There from thy daughter, sister, wife,At midnight drain the stream of life,Yet loathe the banquet which perforceMust feed thy livid living corse.Thy victims ere they yet expireShall know the demon for their sire,As cursing thee, thou cursing them,Thy flowers are withered on the stem.
George Gordon Byron
And it seems people should not build houses anymoreit seems people should stop working and sit in small rooms on second floorsunder electric lightswithout shades;it seems there is a lot to forgetand a lot not to doand in drugstores, markets, bars,the people are tired, they do not want to move, and I stand there at nightand look through this house and the house does not want to be built
Charles Bukowski
At night I dream that you and I are two plantsthat grew together, roots entwined,and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,since we are made of earth and rain.
Pablo Neruda
I have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.I have outwalked the furthest city light.I have looked down the saddest city lane.I have passed by the watchman on his beatAnd dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
Robert Frost
Out of the huts of history's shameI riseUp from a past that's rooted in painI riseI'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that's wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.
Maya Angelou
I will not play at tug o' war.I'd rather play at hug o' war,Where everyone hugsInstead of tugs,Where everyone gigglesAnd rolls on the rug,Where everyone kisses,And everyone grins,And everyone cuddles,And everyone wins.
Shel Silverstein
Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.
Don Marquis
Initiative without action is the same as having the mind to acknowledge a problem, but not having the heart to see it through.
Suzy Kassem
Think wisely before you exercise an action. Having done so however, never look back and regret. That would be a shame
Thiruvalluvar
The word grows mad on the fermentOf angry actions, the authorities can only inflictVisible punishments. Now regard with the unpracticedInner eye the unseen presence of Judgement thenYou will understand the nature of your soul's torment
Jalaluddin Rumi
Come on, shake off the covers of this sloth, for sitting softly cushioned, or tucked in bed, is no way to win fame.
Dante Alighieri
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.(Pluck the day [for it is ripe], trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.)
Horace
Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No cause occurs without effect, and no effect occurs without cause. No unjust action goes without penalty, and no action or thought flows unnoticed throughout the universe.
Suzy Kassem
One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.
D.H. Lawrence
Politics is action and all action is but a flaw in the perfection of inaction, which is peace, just as all being is but a flaw in the perfection of nonbeing. Which is God. For if God is perfection and the only perfection is in nonbeing, then God is nonbeing. Then God is nothing. Nothing can give no basis for the criticism of Thing in its thingness. Then where do you get anything to say? Then where do you get off?
Robert Penn Warren
When you go against the flow of nature and betray the spiritual laws existing within, there will always be a negative reaction.
Suzy Kassem
No effect occurs without cause, and no cause occurs without effect. No unjust action goes without penalty, and no action or thought flows unnoticed throughout the universe.
Suzy Kassem
Action disconcerts us, partly because of our physical incompetence, but mainly because it offends our moral sensibility. We consider it immoral to act. It seems to us that every thought is debased when expressed in words, which transform the thought into the property of others, making it understandable to anyone who can understand it.
Fernando Pessoa
Our situation is intolerable, but what's worseis to sit here and do nothing.
Rita Dove
Strength is not determined by the looks but through action.
Gugu Mona
It's disheartening that most Christians will still miss Heaven because Christians today have forgotten that Heaven is meant for those who declare Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, then confirm that declaration with action.
Gugu Mona