Quotes to inspire and reflect

A child should always say what’s true And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table; At least as far as he is able.

Whenever the moon and stars are set, Whenever the wind is high, All night long in the dark and wet, A man goes riding by. Late in the night when the fires are out, Why does he gallop and gallop about?

Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest— 1 Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candlelight. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.

Oh! the old swimmin’ hole! When I last saw the place, The scenes was all changed, like the change in my face.

O, it sets my heart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

An’ all us other children, when the supper things is done, We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ’at Annie tells about, An’ the Gobble-uns ’at gits you Ef you Watch Out!

’Long about knee-deep in June, ’Bout the time strawberries melts On the vine.

The ripest peach is highest on the tree.

That old sweetheart of mine.

Or ever the knightly years were gone With the old world to the grave, I was a King in Babylon And you were a Christian Slave.

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud; Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.

As dust that drives, as straws that blow, Into the night go one and all.

O Ireland, isn’t it grand you look— Like a bride in her rich adornin’? And with all the pent-up love of my heart I bid you the top o’ the mornin’!

And all else is literature. 5

What have you done, you there Weeping without cease, Tell me, yes you, what have you done With all your youth? 3

Take eloquence and wring its neck! 4

There is weeping in my heart Like the rain falling on the city. 2

The long sobs Of the violins Of autumn Pierce my heart With monotonous languor. 1

I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, Is immortal diamond.

I am gall, I am heartburn.

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night.

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.

Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

World-mothering air, air wild, Wound with thee, in thee isled, Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

I say that we are wound With mercy round and round As if with air.

How to keep—is there any any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, lace, latch or catch or key to keep Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty… from vanishing away?

What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.

It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.

Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving?

When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers, Didst fettle for the great gray drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

Felix Randal the farrier, O he is dead then? My duty all ended, Who have watched his mold of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome, Pining, pining.

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behavior Of silk-sack clouds! Has wilder, willful-wavier Meal-drift molded ever and melted across skies?

All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.

Brute beauty and valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle!

Glory be to God for dappled things.

The achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy!

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring— When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush.

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!

Thou mastering me God! giver of breath and bread; World’s strand, sway of the sea; Lord of living and dead; Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh, And after it almost unmade, what with dread, Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh? Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

Elected Silence, sing to me And beat upon my whorlèd ear, Pipe me to pastures still and be The music that I care to hear.

And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea.