On Poetry Quotes

There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays and every single one of them is right.

Man is no star, but a quick coalOf mortal fire:Who blows it not, nor doth controlA faint desire,

Success is counted sweetest by those ne'er succeed.

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.

I see a brightportionunder the overhead lightthat shades intodarknessand then into darkerdarknessand I can't see beyond that.

The bustle in a houseThe morning after deathIs solemnest of industriesEnacted upon earth, --The sweeping up the heart, And putting love awayWe shall not want to use againUntil eternity

Take the blinders from your visiontake the padding from your earsand confess you've heard me crying and admit you've seen my tears.

To have great poets there must be great audiences too.

This is the Hour of Lead – Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow – First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

Poetry must be as new as foam, and as old as the rock.

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skilfully.

where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die,

What is a woman that you forsake herAnd the hearth fire and the home acreTo go with that old grey widow-maker?

having nothing to struggleagainstthey have nothing to strugglefor.

There are things known and there are things unknownand in between are the doors.

Love, that moves the sun and the other stars

there are so many dayswhen living stops and pulls up and sitsand waits like a train on the rails.

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake, Would all their colours from the sunset take.

It's better to swim in the sea belowThan to swing in the air and feed the crow, Says jolly Ned Teach of Bristol.

I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.

I wait on my fix:I am a poetry junkie.

the worst thing, " he told me, "is bitterness, people end up sobitter.

Painting is mute poetry, and poetry is blind painting

Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow, An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering, High in the purer, happier air.

How can the bird that is born for joySit in a cage and sing?How can a child, when fears annoy, But droop his tender wing, And forget his youthful spring?

I went down to the river, I set down on the bank.I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.

No one can usurp the heights...But those to whom the miseries of the worldAre misery, and will not let them rest.

Some who grow dull religious straight commenceAnd gain in morals what they lose in sense.

A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.

The rain to the wind said, You push and I'll pelt.'They so smote the garden bedThat the flowers actually knelt, And lay lodged--though not dead.I know how the flowers felt.

PoetTo mask the fiery thought, in simple words succeeds.For still the craft of genius is, To mask a king in weeds

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

I give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball, It will lead you in at Heaven's gateBuilt in Jerusalem's wall.

When a great poet has lived certain things have been done once for all and cannot be achieved again.

The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty.

the impossibility of being humanall too humanthis breathingin and outout and inthese punksthese cowardsthese championsthese mad dogs of glorymoving this little bit of light towardusimpossibly.

O, how this spring of love resemblethThe uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away!

that your power of commandwith simple language wasone of the magnificent things ofour century.(from the poem: result)

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art--Not in lone splendour hung aloft the nightAnd watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite.

we must bringour own lightto thedarkness.

Door of passage to the other side, the soul frees itself in stride.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mileMake lame philosophy to smile.He who doubts from what he seesWill ne'er believe, do what you please.- "Auguries of Innocence

A life without books is a thirsty life, and one without poetry is...like a life without pictures.

Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams

Much Madness is Divinest Sense, to a Discerning Eye....

A drainless shower of light is poesy 'tis the supreme of power 'tis might half slumb'ring on its own right arm.

the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own

she wasn't veryinterestingbut few peopleare.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.