Quotes to inspire and reflect

Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan Of tan with henna hackles, halt!

Damned universal cock, as if the sun Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.

She says, “But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss.” Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams And our desires.

We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, Catches tigers In red weather.

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair.

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.

Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Green crammers of the green fruits of the world.

The plum survives its poems.

The natives of the rain are rainy men.

And as he came he saw that it was spring, A time abhorrent to the nihilist Or searcher for the fecund minimum.

Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges, Into twenty villages, Or one man Crossing a single bridge into a village.

The book of moonlight is not written yet.

The learning and blundering people will live on. They will be tricked and sold and again sold And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds.

The people know the salt of the sea and the strength of the winds lashing the corners of the earth. The people take the earth as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope. Who else speaks for the Family of Man?

Why is there always a secret singing When a lawyer cashes in? Why does a hearse horse snicker Hauling a lawyer away?

Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls. Let me lift and loosen old foundations.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work— I am the grass; I cover all.

When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin… in the dust, in the cool tombs.

The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.

Hog butcher for the world, Tool maker, stacker of wheat, Player with railroads and the nation’s freight handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the big shoulders.

Bridge, Fountain, Gate, Jug, Fruit tree, Window,— possibly: Pillar, Tower?

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

but beginning of Terror we’re still just able to bear, and why we adore it so is because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Each single angel is terrible.

Us the most fleeting of all. Just once, everything, only for once. Once and no more. And we, too, once. And never again. But this having been once, though only once, having been once on earth—can it ever be canceled?

I am Rose my eyes are blue I am Rose and who are you I am Rose and when I sing I am Rose like anything.

Pigeons on the grass alas.

To know to know to love her so. Four saints prepare for saints.

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.

This is the Law of the Yukon, that only the strong shall thrive; That surely the weak shall perish, and only the fit survive. Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain, This is the Will of the Yukon—Lo, how she makes it plain!

Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.

Unless I’m wrong I but obey The urge of a song: I’m—bound—away! And I may return If dissatisfied With what I learn From having died.

It’s all a mystery, so much is mysterious. And we are here to endure it. And in the How, there lies the whole difference— 1

I am assured at any rate Man’s practically inexterminate. Someday I must go into that. There’s always been an Ararat Where someone someone else begat To start the world all over at.

It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling To get adapted to my kind of fooling.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.

It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height, So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may take something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.

That looks in on to a mood apart.

All those who try to go it sole alone, Too proud to be beholden for relief, Are absolutely sure to come to grief.

Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

Have I not walked without an upward look Of caution under stars that very well Might not have missed me when they shot and fell? It was a risk I had to take—and took.

Back out of all this now too much for us, Back in a time made simple by the loss Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather, There is a house that is no more a house Upon a farm that is no more a farm And in a town that is no more a town.

First there’s the children’s house of make believe, Some shattered dishes underneath a pine, The playthings in the playhouse of the children. Weep for what little things could make them glad.

And were an epitaph to be my story I’d have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

Far in the pillared dark Thrush music went— Almost like a call to come in To the dark and lament. But no, I was out for stars: I would not come in. I meant not even if asked, And I hadn’t been.

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound By countless silken ties of love and thought To everything on earth the compass round, And only by one’s going slightly taut In the capriciousness of summer air Is of the slightest bondage made aware.