Kathleen Raine Quotes

I've read all the books but one Only remains sacred: this Volume of wonders, open Always before my eyes.

Meanings, moods, the whole scale of our inner experience, finds in nature the 'correspondences' through which we may know our boundless selves.

Intent on one great love, perfect, Requited and for ever, I missed love's everywhere Small presence, thousand-guised.

Chemistry dissolves the goddess in the alembic, Venus, the white queen, the universal matrix, Down to the molecular hexagons and carbon-chains.

... the poem reminds us of what we ourselves know, but did not know we knew; reminds us, above all, of what we are.

Of all the arts the living of a life is perhaps the greatest; to live every moment of life with the same imaginative commitment as the poet brings to a special field.

Nature is the common, universal language, understood by all.

I couldn't claim that I have never felt the urge to explore evil, but when you descend into hell you have to be very careful.

Sensing us, the trees tremble in their sleep, The living leaves recoil before our fires, Baring to us war-charred and broken branches, And seeing theirs, we for our own destruction weep.

And see the peaceful trees extend their myriad leaves in leisured dance- they bear the weight of sky and cloud upon the fountain of their veins.

The work of the artist is to heal the soul.

Being a poet is not a job or a profession but a way of life.

Academia is a graveyard of poets.

The air is full of a farewell- deserted by the silver lake lies the wild world, overturned. Cities rise where the mountains fell, the furnace where the phoenix burned

I couldn't claim that I have never felt the urge to explore evil but when you descend into hell you have to be very careful.

For [W. B.] Yeats magic was not so much a kind of poetry as poetry a kind of magic, and the object of both alike was evocation of energies and knowledge from beyond normal consciousness.

Whiteness of moonlight builds a house that is not there

And see the peaceful trees extendtheir myriad leaves in leisured dance—they bear the weight of sky and cloudupon the fountain of their veins.