Fear and Anxiety

Wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie,

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

My mother groaned! my father wept.

We must travel in the direction of our fear.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

In the nightmare of the dark

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

There would be nothing to frighten you if you refused to be afraid.

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.

Fear has its use, but cowardice has none.

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home, Your house is on fire, and your children will burn.

I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You—

You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

The rat is in the trap, it is in the trap, And attacking heaven and earth with a mouthful of screeches like torn tin.

When she introduces me to her parents back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie, should I sit knees together on their 3rd degree sofa and not ask Where’s the bathroom?

I haven’t lost a battle yet but I am tense for the first losing.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, element bearable to no mortal, to fish and to seals…

Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.

The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy.

In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark.

I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odor of death Offends the September night.

Four be the things I’d been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

I am caught like a beast at bay. Somewhere are people, freedom, light, But all I hear is the baying of the pack, There is no way out for me.

Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown, Lilac and brown hair; Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair, Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair Climbing the third stair.