Quotes by Poets - Page 451

We are all dust passing through the air, the difference is, some are flying high in the sky, while others are flying low. But eventually, we all settle on the same ground.
Anthony Liccione
Ah, Lalage! while life is ours, Hoard not thy beauty rose and white, But pluck the pretty fleeing flowers That deck our little path of light: For all too soon we twain shall tread The bitter pastures of the dead: Estranged, sad spectres of the night.
Ernest Dowson
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts, though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In crime and enmity they lie Who sin and tell us love can die, Who say to us in slander's breath That love belongs to sin and death.
John Clare
These are the ushers of Martius: before himHe carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie,Which being advanc'd, declines, and then men die.
William Shakespeare
I believe that to be the world's greatest livingwriterthere must be somethingterribly wrong with you.I don't even want to be the world's greatestdead writer.just being dead would be fairenough.
Charles Bukowski
But one wants the idea of Death, you know, as something large and unknowable, something that allows a person to stretch himself out. Especially one wants it if one is tired. Or perhaps what one wants is simply a release from sensation, from all consciousness for ever....
Stevie Smith
Open questions like love, life, death, struggle and sex are our experiences, our opinions are not answers but they still remain mysterious unanswered questions. Let it be Open.
Santosh Kalwar
Corpses sour you. They are bad for objectivity.
Bertolt Brecht
Death always knew how to connect vice with misfortune.
Jindřich Štyrský
While he was waiting, leaning on the counter at a coffee place, he remembered the dream he'd had the night before about Antonio Jones, who had been dead for several years now. As before, he asked himself what Jones could have died of, and the one answer that occurred to him was old age. One day, walking down some street in Brooklyn, Antonio Jones had felt tired, sat down on the sidewalk, and a second later stopped existing.
Roberto Bolaño
Yes, he is here in thisopen field, in sunlight, amongthe few young trees set outto modify the bare facts--he's here, but onlybecause we are here.When we go, he goes with usto be your hands that neverdo violence, your eyesthat wonder, your livesthat daily praise lifeby living it, by laughter.He is never alone here,never cold in the field of graves.
Denise Levertov
The lapse of ages changes all things - time - language - the earth - the bounds of the sea - the stars of the sky, and everything 'about, around, and underneath' man, except man himself, who has always been and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been made have multiplied little but existence.
George Gordon Byron
The desire of death will not always lead you to death but the fear of death will.
Santosh Kalwar
All primitive people are frightened of owls,' said Harley. 'The villagers here are scared to death of the gufo. Birds of ill omen. If they see one, they think they'll die. But they never do. See one, I mean, of course,' he added with a laugh.
Francis Brett Young
Each day death corrodes what we call living, and life ceaselessly swallows our desire for the void.
Jindřich Štyrský
Till her appointed course be run;Till on the darkness faint her breathFlown to the silent void, and DeathSit crowned upon the ashen sun.(“The Testimony of the Suns”)
George Sterling
And will 'a not come again? And will 'a not come again? No, no, he is dead, Go to thy death bed: He will never come again.
William Shakespeare
Lieb Liebchen, leg ‘s Händchen aufs Herze mein; -Ach, hörst du, wie’s pochet im Kämmerlein,Da hauset ein Zimmermann schlimm und arg,Der zimmert mir einen Totensarg.Es hämmert und klopfet bei Tag und bei Nacht;Es hat mich schon längst um den Schlaf gebracht.Ach! sputet Euch, Meister Zimmermann,Damit ich balde schlafen kann.
Heinrich Heine
Let him submit to me! Only the god of death is so relentless, Death submits to no one—so mortals hate him most of all the gods. Let him bow down to me! I am the greater king, I am the elder-born, I claim—the greater man.
Homer
The universal pervasion of ugliness, hideous landscapes, vile noises, foul language...everything. Unnatural, broken, blasted; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth. In poetry we call them the most glorious.
Wilfred Owen
They understand death, they stand there in the church under the skies that have a beginningless past and go into the never-ending future, waiting themselves for death, at the foot of the dead, in a holy temple. - I get a vision of myself and the two little boys hung up in a great endless universe with nothing overhead and nothing under bbut the Infinite Nothingness, the Enormousness of it, the dead without number in all directions of existence whether inward into the atom-worlds of your own body or outward to the universe which may only be one atom in an infinity of atom-worlds and each atom-world only a figure of speech - inward, outward, up and down, nothing but emptiness and divine majesty and silence for the two little boys and me.
Jack Kerouac
Whilst the wolflets bayed, A grave was made, And then with the strokes of a silver spade, It was filled to make a mound. And for two cold days and three long nights, The father tended that holy plot; And stayed by where his wife was laid, In the grave within the ground.
Roman Payne
What branch does not have its leaves and which twig will not have its flowers?
Sorin Cerin
The only advantage of knowledge is that it can justify suffering.
Sorin Cerin
Who can be worried without the light of a memory?
Sorin Cerin
Ever peaceful be you slumberThough your days were few in numberOn this earth-spite took its toll-Yet shall heaven have your soulWith pure love we did regard youFor your loved one did we guard youBut you came not to the groomOnly to a chill dark tomb
Alexander Pushkin
You, why are you so afraid of war and slaughter? Even if all the rest of us drop and die around you, grappling for the ships, you’d run no risk of death: you lack the heart to last it out in combat—coward!
Homer
Death is alive, they whispered. Death lives inside life, as bones dance within the body. Yesterday is within today. Yesterday never dies.
Luis Alberto Urrea
If I lie down on my bed I must be here,But if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere.
Stevie Smith
Love is not love that wounded bleeds And bleeding sullies slow. Come death within my hands and I Unto my love will go.
Stevie Smith
If you heard your lover scream in the next roomand you ran in and saw his pinkie on the floor, in a small puddle of blood.You wouldn't rush to the pinkie and say, 'Darling, are you OK? 'No, you'd wrap your arms around his shoulders and worry about the pinkie later.The same holds true if you heard the scream, ran in and saw his hand or -god forbid- his whole arm.But suppose you hear your lover scream in the next room, and you run in and his head is on the floor next to his body.Which do you rush to and comfort first?
Jeffrey McDaniel
Flowers, cold from the dew,And autumn's approaching breath,I pluck for the warm, luxuriant braids,Which haven't faded yet.In their nights, fragrantly resinous,Entwined with delightful mystery,They will breathe in her springlikeExtraordinary beauty.But in a whirlwind of sound and fire,From her shing head they will flutterAnd fall—and before herThey will die, faintly fragrant still.And, impelled by faithful longing,My obedient gaze will feast upon them—With a reverent hand,Love will gather their rotting remains.
Anna Akhmatova
Who said, 'All Time's delightHath she for narrow bed;Life's troubled bubble broken'? ---That's what I said.
Walter de la Mare
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,And therefore I forbid my tears.
William Shakespeare
The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seaswhere we would dive for pearls. My lover’s wordswere shooting stars which fell to earth as kisseson these lips; my body now a softer rhymeto his, now echo, assonance; his toucha verb dancing in the centre of a noun.Some nights, I dreamed he’d written me, the beda page beneath his writer’s hands. Romanceand drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -I hold him in the casket of my widow’s headas he held me upon that next best bed.
Carol Ann Duffy
I won't be sad too often,If they bury me in the libraryWith bookworms in my coffin.
J. Patrick Lewis
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!This was the most unkindest cut of all
William Shakespeare
This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard, and make a wish.
Richard Siken
Thank God,my name isn’t in the list of thosewho died or werekilled yesterday!
Suman Pokhrel
The fact of having been born is a bad augury for immortality.
George Santayana
He was just a small church parson when thetwar broke out, and heLooked and dressed and acted like all parsonstthat we see.He wore the cleric's broadcloth and he hookedthis vest behind.But he had a man's religion and he had a stongtman's mind.And he heard the call to duty, and he quit histchurch and went.And he bravely tramped right with 'em every-twhere the boys were sent.He put aside his broadcloth and he put thetkhaki on;Said he'd come to be a soldier and was goingtto live like one.Then he'd refereed the prize fights that the boystpulled off at night,And if no one else was handy he'd put on thetgloves and fight.He wasn't there a fortnight ere he saw the sol-tdiers' needs,And he said: "I'm done with preaching; thistis now the time for deeds."He learned the sound of shrapnel, he could telltthe size of shellFrom the shriek it make above him, and he knewtjust where it fell.In the front line trench he laboured, and he knewtthe feel of mud,And he didn't run from danger and he wasn'ttscared of blood.He wrote letters for the wounded, and he cheeredtthem with his jokes,And he never made a visit without passing round the smokes.Then one day a bullet got him, as he knelt be-tside a ladWho was "going west" right speedy, and theytboth seemed mighty glad,'Cause he held the boy's hand tighter, and he tsmiled and whispered low,"Now you needn't fear the journey; over theretwith you I'll go."And they both passed out together, arm in armtI think they went.He had kept his vow to follow everywhere thetboys were sent.
Edgar A. Guest
While death and darkness girdle meI grope for immortality.
Lionel Pigot Johnson
There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.
Stevie Smith
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval
George Santayana
But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near
Andrew Marvell
Be sure that head and heart were laidIn wisdom down, content to die.Be sure he faced the Starless SkyUnduped, unmurmuring, unafraid.(“The Passing of Bierce”)
George Sterling
A child's reaction to this type of calamity is twofold and extreme. Not knowing how deeply, powerfully, life drops anchor into its vast sources of recuperation, he is bound to envisage, at once, the very worst; yet at the same time, because of his inability to imagine death, the worst remains totally unreal to him. Gerard went on repeating: "Paul's dying; Paul's going to die"' but he did not believe it. Paul's death would be part of the dream, a dream of snow, of journeying forever.
Jean Cocteau
It was this mystery, bereft now of all fear, and this beauty together that made life the endless, changing and yet changeless, thing it was. And yet mystery and loveliness alike were really only appreciable with one's legs, as it were, dangling down over into the grave.
Walter de la Mare
Poets are interested primarily in death and commas.
Carolyn Kizer
We do not play on Graves—Because there isn't Room—Besides—it isn't even—it slantsAnd People come—And put a Flower on it—And hang their faces so—We're fearing that their Hearts will drop—And crush our pretty play—And so we move as farAs Enemies—away—Just looking round to see how farIt is—Occasionally—
Emily Dickinson
Little sleep's-head sprouting hair in the moonlight,when I come backwe will go out together,we will walk out together among,the ten thousand things,each scratched too late with such knowledge, the wages of dying is love.
Galway Kinnell
In every person, there is a doer and a devil. With every passing days, the doer dies and a devil has to rise.
Santosh Kalwar
And here face down beneath the sunAnd here upon earth's noonward heightTo feel the always coming onThe always rising of the night
Archibald MacLeish
Our life is composed of events and states of mind. How ewe appraise our life from our deathbed will be predicated not only on what came to us in life but how we lived with it. It will not be simply illness or health, riches or poverty, good luck or bad, which ultimately define whether we believe we have had a good life or not, but the quality of our relationship to these situations: the attitudes of our states of mind. (34)
Stephen Levine
…but there they lay, sprawled across the field, craved far more by the vultures than by wives.
Homer
..the nuclear family from across the street, which, as a result of decay, truly did have 2.5 kids;
Robin Becker
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;Make dust our paper and with rainy eyesWrite sorrow on the bosom of the earth,Let's choose executors and talk of wills
William Shakespeare
O, that this too too solid flesh would meltThaw and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fix'dHis canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,Seem to me all the uses of this world!Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,That grows to seed; things rank and gross in naturePossess it merely. That it should come to this!But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:So excellent a king; that was, to this,Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my motherThat he might not beteem the winds of heavenVisit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,As if increase of appetite had grownBy what it fed on: and yet, within a month--Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--A little month, or ere those shoes were oldWith which she follow'd my poor father's body,Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,My father's brother, but no more like my fatherThan I to Hercules: within a month:Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tearsHad left the flushing in her galled eyes,She married. O, most wicked speed, to postWith such dexterity to incestuous sheets!It is not nor it cannot come to good:But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
William Shakespeare
For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal.
Hermann Hesse