Background Image

...

We Hate Poetry That Has A Palpable Design Upon Us - And If We Do Not Agree, Seems To Put Its Hand In Its Breeches Pocket. Poetry Should Be Great & Unobtrusive, A Thing Which Enters Into One's Soul, And Does Not Startle It Or Amaze It With Itself But With Its Subject. - How Beautiful Are The Retired Flowers! How Would They Lose Their Beauty Were They To Throng Into The Highway Crying Out, "admire Me I Am A Violet! Dote Upon Me I Am A Primrose!"

-John Keats

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

We Hate Poetry That

John Keats

...

We Hate Poetry That Has A Palpable Design Upon Us - And If We Do Not Agree, Seems To Put Its Hand In Its Breeches Pocket. Poetry Should Be Great & Unobtrusive, A Thing Which Enters Into One's Soul, And Does Not Startle It Or Amaze It With Itself But With Its Subject. - How Beautiful Are The Retired Flowers! How Would They Lose Their Beauty Were They To Throng Into The Highway Crying Out, "admire Me I Am A Violet! Dote Upon Me I Am A Primrose!"

Views: 12307

Topic

More From John Keats

The Silver, Snarling Trumpets 'gan To Chide.

The Excellence Of Every Art Is Its Intensity, Capable Of Making All Disagreeables Evaporate, From Their Being In Close Relationship With Beauty And Truth.

This Grave Contains All That Was Mortal Of A Young English Poet Who On His Death Bed In The Bitterness Of His Heart At The Malicious Power Of His Enemies Desired These Words To Be Engraved On His Tomb Stone "here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ In Water."

You Are Always New To Me.

Sweet Are The Pleasures That To Verse Belong, And Doubly Sweet A Brotherhood In Song.

You Cannot Conceive How I Ache To Be With You: How I Would Die For One Hour.

A Man Should Have The Fine Point Of His Soul Taken Off To Become Fit For This World.

Thou Art A Dreaming Thing, A Fever Of Thyself.

I Would Sooner Fail Than Not Be Among The Greatest.

I Find That I Can Have No Enjoyment In The World But The Continual Drinking Of Knowledge. I Find There Is No Worthy Pursuit But The Idea Of Doing Some Good For The World.

Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ In Water.

Why Employ Intelligent And Highly Paid Ambassadors And Then Go And Do Their Work For Them? You Don't Buy A Canary And Sing Yourself.

Let Us Open Our Leaves Like A Flower, And Be Passive And Receptive.

Nothing Is Finer For The Purposes Of Great Productions Than A Very Gradual Ripening Of The Intellectual Powers.

The Air Is All Softness.

I Never Can Feel Certain Of Any Truth, But From A Clear Perception Of Its Beauty.

I Cannot Exist Without You - I Am Forgetful Of Every Thing But Seeing You Again - My Life Seems To Stop There - I See No Further. You Have Absorb'd Me. I Have A Sensation At The Present Moment As Though I Were Dissolving... I Have Been Astonished That Men Could Die Martyrs For Religion - I Have Shudder'd At It - I Shudder No More - I Could Be Martyr'd For My Religion - Love Is My Religion - I Could Die For That - I Could Die For You. My Creed Is Love And You Are Its Only Tenet - You Have Ravish'd Me Away By A Power I Cannot Resist.

I Do Think Better Of Womankind Than To Suppose They Care Whether Mister John Keats Five Feet High Likes Them Or Not.

To Sorrow I Bade Good-morrow, And Thought To Leave Her Far Away Behind; But Cheerly, Cheerly, She Loves Me Dearly: She Is So Constant To Me, And So Kind.

The Public - A Thing I Cannot Help Looking Upon As An Enemy, And Which I Cannot Address Without Feelings Of Hostility.

I Saw Pale Kings And Princes Too, Pale Warriors, Death-pale Were They All; They Cried- "la Belle Dame Sans Merci Hath Thee In Thrall!

I Myself Am Pursuing The Same Instinctive Course As The Veriest Human Animal You Can Think Of I Am, However Young, Writing At Random Straining At Particles Of Light In The Midst Of A Great Darkness Without Knowing The Bearing Of Any One Assertion, Of Any One Opinion. Yet May I Not In This Be Free From Sin?

Heard Melodies Are Sweet, But Those Unheard Are Sweeter.

The Opinion I Have Of The Generality Of Women--who Appear To Me As Children To Whom I Would Rather Give A Sugar Plum Than My Time, Forms A Barrier Against Matrimony Which I Rejoice In.

They Swayed About Upon A Rocking Horse, And Thought It Pegasus.

I Am Certain I Have Not A Right Feeling Towards Women -- At This Moment I Am Striving To Be Just To Them, But I Cannot. Is It Because They Fall So Far Beneath My Boyish Imagination? When I Was A Schoolboy I Thought A Fair Woman A Pure Goddess; My Mind Was A Soft Nest In Which Some One Of Them Slept, Though She Knew It Not.

I Think I Shall Be Among The English Poets After My Death.

The Feel Of Not To Feel It, When There Is None To Heal It Nor Numbed Sense To Steel It.

Load Every Rift With Ore.

You Are Always New, The Last Of Your Kisses Was Ever The Sweetest.

O Solitude! If I Must With Thee Dwell, Let It Not Be Among The Jumbled Heap Of Murky Buildings

With A Great Poet The Sense Of Beauty Overcomes Every Other Consideration, Or Rather Obliterates All Consideration.

Ask Yourself My Love Whether You Are Not Very Cruel To Have So Entrammelled Me, So Destroyed My Freedom. Will You Confess This In The Letter You Must Write Immediately, And Do All You Can To Console Me In It — Make It Rich As A Draught Of Poppies To Intoxicate Me —write The Softest Words And Kiss Them That I May At Least Touch My Lips Where Yours Have Been. For Myself I Know Not How To Express My Devotion To So Fair A Form: I Want A Brighter Word Than Bright, A Fairer Word Than Fair.

That Which Is Creative Must Create Itself.

When I Have Fears That I May Ceace To Be, Before My Pen Has Gleaned My Teaming Brain".

For Axioms In Philosophy Are Not Axioms Until They Are Proved Upon Our Pulses.

Here Are Sweet Peas, On Tiptoe For A Flight; With Wings Of Gentle Flush O'er Delicate White, And Taper Fingers Catching At All Things, To Bind Them All About With Tiny Rings.

I Love Your Hills And I Love Your Dales, And I Love Your Flocks A-bleating; But Oh, On The Heather To Lie Together, With Both Our Hearts A-beating!

You Have Absorb'd Me. I Have A Sensation At The Present Moment As Though I Was Dissolving.

There Is An Electric Fire In Human Nature Tending To Purify - So That Among These Human Creatures There Is Continually Some Birth Of New Heroism. The Pity Is That We Must Wonder At It, As We Should At Finding A Pearl In Rubbish.

Through Buried Paths, Where Sleepy Twilight Dreams The Summer Time Away.

He Who Saddens At Thought Of Idleness Cannot Be Idle, / And He's Awake Who Thinks Himself Asleep.

Parting They Seemed To Tread Upon The Air, Twin Roses By The Zephyr Blown Apart Only To Meet Again More Close.

There Was An Awful Rainbow Once In Heaven: We Know Her Woof, Her Texture; She Is Given In The Dull Catalogue Of Common Things. Philosophy Will Clip An Angel's Wings.

...yes, In Spite Of All, Some Shape Of Beauty Moves Away The Pall From Out Dark Spirits.

I Shall Soon Be Laid In The Quiet Grave - Thank God For The Quiet Grave

A Quote About Drinking Is A Joy Forever

O Let Me Lead Her Gently O'er The Brook, Watch Her Half-smiling Lips And Downward Look; O Let Me For One Moment Touch Her Wrist; Let Me One Moment To Her Breathing List; And As She Leaves Me, May She Often Turn Her Fair Eyes Looking Through Her Locks Auburne.

O For A Life Of Sensations Rather Than Of Thoughts!

If Poetry Does Not Come As Naturally As Leaves To A Tree, Then It Better Not Come At All.

Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast As Thou Art-- Not In Lone Splendour Hung Aloft The Night And Watching, With Eternal Lids Apart, Like Nature's Patient, Sleepless Eremite.

I Have Good Reason To Be Content, For Thank God I Can Read And Perhaps Understand Shakespeare To His Depths.

The Genius Of Shakespeare Was An Innate University.

Is There Another Life? Shall I Awake And Find All This A Dream? There Must Be We Cannot Be Created For This Sort Of Suffering.

I See A Lily On Thy Brow, With Anguish Moist And Fever Dew; And On Thy Cheek A Fading Rose Fast Withereth Too.

Season Of Mists And Mellow Fruitfulness, Close Bosom-friend Of The Maturing Sun.

When Old Age Shall This Generation Waste, Thou Shalt Remain, In Midst Of Other Woe Than Ours, A Friend To Man, To Whom Thou Say'st, "beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty," - That Is All Ye Know On Earth, And All Ye Need To Know.

This Generation

Do You Not See How Necessary A World Of Pains And Troubles Is To School An Intelligence And Make It A Soul?

Give Me Books, Fruit, French Wine And Fine Weather And A Little Music Out Of Doors, Played By Someone I Do Not Know. I Admire Lolling On A Lawn By A Water-lilied Pond To Eat White Currants And See Goldfish: And Go To The Fair In The Evening If I'm Good. There Is Not Hope For That -one Is Sure To Get Into Some Mess Before Evening.

In A Drear-nighted December, Too Happy, Happy Brook, Thy Bubblings Ne'er Remember Apollo's Summer Look; But With A Sweet Forgetting, They Stay Their Crystal Fretting, Never, Never Petting About The Frozen Time.

My Mind Has Been The Most Discontented And Restless One That Ever Was Put Into A Body Too Small For It.

Let Us Away, My Love, With Happy Speed; There Are No Ears To Hear, Or Eyes To See, - Drown'd All In Rhenish And The Sleepy Mead. Awake! Arise! My Love And Fearless Be, For O'er The Southern Moors I Have A Home For Thee.

He Ne'er Is Crowned With Immortality Who Fears To Follow Where Airy Voices Lead.

Works Of Genius Are The First Things In The World.

Turn The Key Deftly In The Oiled Wards, And Seal The Hushed Casket Of My Soul.

Ghosts Of Melodious Prophesyings Rave Round Every Spot Where Trod Apollo's Foot; Bronze Clarions Awake, And Faintly Bruit, Where Long Ago A Giant Battle Was; And, From The Turf, A Lullaby Doth Pass In Every Place Where Infant Orpheus Slept. Feel We These Things? - That Moment Have We Stept Into A Sort Of Oneness, And Our State Is Like A Floating Spirit's. But There Are Richer Entanglements, Enthralments Far More Self-destroying, Leading, By Degrees, To The Chief Intensity: The Crown Of These Is Made Of Love And Friendship, And Sits High Upon The Forehead Of Humanity.

Oh What Can Ail Thee, Knight-at-arms, Alone And Palely Loitering?

I Cannot Exist Without You - I Am Forgetful Of Every Thing But Seeing You Again - My Life Seems To Stop There - I See No Further. You Have Absorb'd Me. I Have A Sensation At The Present Moment As Though I Was Dissolving.

Many Have Original Minds Who Do Not Think It - They Are Led Away By Custom!

But The Rose Leaves Herself Upon The Brier, For Winds To Kiss And Grateful Bees To Feed.

My Passions Are All Asleep From My Having Slumbered Till Nearly Eleven And Weakened The Animal Fiber All Over Me To A Delightful Sensation About Three Degrees On This Sight Of Faintness - If I Had Teeth Of Pearl And The Breath Of Lilies I Should Call It Languor - But As I Am I Must Call It Laziness. In This State Of Effeminacy The Fibers Of The Brain Are Relaxed In Common With The Rest Of The Body, And To Such A Happy Degree That Pleasure Has No Show Of Enticement And Pain No Unbearable Frown. Neither Poetry, Nor Ambition, Nor Love Have Any Alertness Of Countenance As They Pass By Me.

Through The Sad Heart Of Ruth, When Sick For Home She Stood In Tears Amid The Alien Corn; The Same That Ofttimes Hath Charm'd Magic Casements, Opening On The Foam Of Perilous Seas, In Faery Lands Forlorn.

Four Seasons Fill The Measure Of The Year; There Are Four Seasons In The Minds Of Men.

Can Death Be Sleep, When Life Is But A Dream, And Scenes Of Bliss Pass As A Phantom By? ---"on Death

So Rainbow-sided, Touch'd With Miseries, She Seem'd, At Once, Some Penanced Lady Elf, Some Demon's Mistress, Or The Demon's Self.

How Beautiful, If Sorrow Had Not Made Sorrow More Beautiful Than Beauty's Self.

--then On The Shore Of The Wide World I Stand Alone, And Think Till Love And Fame To Nothingness Do Sink.

Much Have I Travell'd In The Realms Of Gold.

The World Is Too Brutal For Me-i Am Glad There Is Such A Thing As The Grave-i Am Sure I Shall Never Have Any Rest Till I Get There.

Philosophy Will Clip An Angel's Wings, Conquer All Mysteries By Rule And Line, Empty The Haunted Air, And Gnomed Mine - Unweave A Rainbow.

Then Felt I Like Some Watcher Of The Skies When A New Planet Swims Into His Ken.

What Is More Gentle Than A Wind Is Summer?

No One Can Usurp The Heights... But Those To Whom The Miseries Of The World Are Misery, And Will Not Let Them Rest.

Some Say The World Is A Vale Of Tears, I Say It Is A Place Of Soul-making.

I Have Two Luxuries To Brood Over In My Walks, Your Loveliness And The Hour Of My Death. O That I Could Have Possession Of Them Both In The Same Minute.

I Compare Human Life To A Large Mansion Of Many Apartments, Two Of Which I Can Only Describe, The Doors Of The Rest Being As Yet Shut Upon Me.

Fade Far Away, Dissolve, And Quite Forget.

Fast Fading Violets Cover'd Up In Leaves; And Mid-may's Eldest Child, The Coming Musk-rose, Full Of Dewy Wine, The Murmurous Haunt Of Flies On Summer Eves.

Joy, Whose Hand Is Ever At His Lips, Bidding Adieu

The Uttered Part Of A Man's Life, Let Us Always Repeat, Bears To The Unuttered, Unconscious Part A Small Unknown Proportion. He Himself Never Knows It, Much Less Do Others.

I Equally Dislike The Favor Of The Public With The Love Of A Woman - They Are Both A Cloying Treacle To The Wings Of Independence.

Their Woes Gone By, And Both To Heaven Upflown, To Bow For Gratitude Before Jove's Throne.

Fanatics Have Their Dreams, Wherewith They Weave A Paradise For A Sect.

Positive Atheism

In The Long Vista Of The Years To Roll,\ Let Me Not See My Country's Honor Fade;\ Oh! Let Me See Our Land Retain Its Soul!\ Her Pride In Freedom, And Not Freedom's Shade.

Young Playmates Of The Rose And Daffodil, Be Careful Ere Ye Enter In, To Fill Your Baskets High With Fennel Green, And Balm, And Golden Pines Savory Latter-mint, And Columbines.

A Long Poem Is A Test Of Invention Which I Take To Be The Polar Star Of Poetry, As Fancy Is The Sails, And Imagination The Rudder.

Thou Foster-child Of Silence And Slow Time.

Foster Children

For Poesy Alone Can Tell Her Dreams, With The Fine Spell Of Words Alone Can Save Imagination From The Sable Charm And Dumb Enchantment. Who Alive Can Say, ‘thou Art No Poet May’st Not Tell Thy Dreams?’ Since Every Man Whose Soul Is Not A Clod Hath Visions, And Would Speak, If He Had Loved And Been Well Nurtured In His Mother Tongue. Whether The Dream Now Purpos’d To Rehearse Be Poet’s Or Fanatic’s Will Be Known When This Warm Scribe My Hand Is In The Grave.

Darkling I Listen; And, For Many A Time I Have Been Half In Love With Easeful Death, Called Him Soft Names In Many A Muse' D Rhyme, To Take Into The Air My Quiet Breath; Now More Than Ever Seems It Rich To Die, To Cease Upon The Midnight With No Pain, While Thou Art Pouring Forth Thy Soul Abroad In Such An Ecstasy!

His Old Right Hand Lay Nerveless, Listless, Dead, Unsceptred; And His Realmless Eyes Were Closed.

Through The Dancing Poppies Stole A Breeze, Most Softly Lulling To My Soul.

Alas! When Passion Is Both Meek And Wild!

Nor Do We Merely Feel These Essences For One Short Hour No, Even As These Trees That Whisper Round A Temple Become Soon Dear As The Temples Self, So Does The Moon, The Passion Posey, Glories Infinite, Haunt Us Till They Become A Cheering Light Unto Our Souls And Bound To Us So Fast, That Wheather There Be Shine, Or Gloom O'er Cast, They Always Must Be With Us, Or We Die.

Much Have I Traveled In The Realms Of Gold, And Many Goodly States And Kingdoms Seen.

A Hope Beyond The Shadow Of A Dream.

I Am Certain Of Nothing But The Holiness Of The Heart's Affections, And The Truth Of Imagination.

And There Shall Be For Thee All Soft Delight That Shadowy Thought Can Win, A Bright Torch, And A Casement Ope At Night, To Let The Warm Love In!

I Have Loved The Principle Of Beauty In All Things.

To Hope "when By My Solitary Hearth I Sit, And Hateful Thoughts Enwrap My Soul In Gloom; When No Fair Dreams Before My 'mind's Eye' Flit, And The Bare Heath Of Life Presents No Bloom; Sweet Hope, Ethereal Balm Upon Me Shed, And Wave Thy Silver Pinions O'er My Head.

Every Fresh Experience Points Out Some Form Of Error Which We Shall Afterwards Carefully Avoid.

I Am Sailing With Thee Through The Dizzy Sky! How Beautiful Thou Art!

There Is A Budding Tomorrow In Midnight.

We Have Woven A Web, You And I, Attached To This World But A Separate World Of Our Own Invention.

So Let Me Be Thy Choir, And Make A Moan Upon The Midnight Hours.

Real Are The Dreams Of Gods, And Smoothly Pass Their Pleasures In A Long Immortal Dream.

Talking Of Pleasure, This Moment I Was Writing With One Hand, And With The Other Holding To My Mouth A Nectarine - How Good How Fine. It Went Down All Pulpy, Slushy, Oozy, All Its Delicious Embonpoint Melted Down My Throat Like A Large, Beatified Strawberry.

Of Love, That Fairest Joys Give Most Unrest.

Music's Golden Tongue Flatter'd To Tears This Aged Man And Poor.

I Cannot See What Flowers Are At My Feet, Nor What Soft Incense Hangs Upon The Boughs, But, In Embalmed Darkness, Guess Each Sweet.

Should Disappointment, Parent Of Despair, Strive For Her Son To Seize My Careless Heart; When, Like A Cloud, He Sits Upon The Air, Preparing On His Spell-bound Prey To Dart: Chase Him Away, Sweet Hope, With Visage Bright, And Fright Him As The Morning Frightens Night!

Call The World If You Please "the Vale Of Soul-making." Then You Will Find Out The Use Of The World.

O Fret Not After Knowledge - I Have None, And Yet My Song Comes Native With The Warmth. O Fret Not After Knowledge - I Have None, And Yet The Evening Listens.

It Appears To Me That Almost Any Man May Like The Spider Spin From His Own Inwards His Own Airy Citadel.

Dance And Provencal Song And Sunburnt Mirth! On For A Beaker Full Of The Warm South, Full Of The True, The Blushful Hippocrene! With Beaded Bubbles Winking At The Brim, And Purple-stained Mouth.

All My Clear-eyed Fish, Golden, Or Rainbow-sided, Or Purplish, Vermilion-tail'd, Or Finn'd With Silvery Gauze... My Charming Rod, My Potent River Spells.

The Only Means Of Strengthening One's Intellect Is To Make Up One's Mind About Nothing, To Let The Mind Be A Thoroughfare For All Thoughts.

Beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty,-that Is All Ye Know On Earth, And All Ye Need To Know.

Sometimes Goldfinches One By One Will Drop From Low Hung Branches; Little Space They Stop; But Sip, And Twitter, And Their Feathers Sleek; Then Off At Once, As In A Wanton Freak: Or Perhaps, To Show Their Black, And Golden Wings Pausing Upon Their Yellow Flutterings.

Much Have I Traveled In The Realms Of Gold, And Many Goodly States And Kingdoms Seen; Round Many Western Islands Have I Been Which Bards In Fealty To Apollo Hold. Oft Of One Wide Expanse Had I Been Told That Deep-brow'd Homer Ruled As His Demesne, Yet Did I Never Breathe Its Pure Serene Till I Heard Chapman Speak Out Loud And Bold: Then Felt I Like Some Watcher Of The Skies When A New Planet Swims Into His Ken; Or Like Stout Cortez When With Eagle Eyes He Stared At The Pacific, And All His Men Look'd At Each Other With A Wild Surmise, Silent, Upon A Peak In Darien.

My Imagination Is A Monastery And I Am Its Monk.

Even Bees, The Little Almsmen Of Spring Bowers, Know There Is Richest Juice In Poison-flowers.

That Queen Of Secrecy, The Violet.

I Have Nothing To Speak Of But My Self-and What Can I Say But What I Feel.

Give Me Women, Wine And Snuff Until I Cry Out 'hold, Enough!' You May Do So San Objection Till The Day Of Resurrection; For Bless My Beard Then Aye Shall Be My Beloved Trinity.

There's A Blush For Won't, And A Blush For Shan't, And A Blush For Having Done It: There's A Blush For Thought And A Blush For Naught, And A Blush For Just Begun It.

There Is Nothing Stable In The World; Uproar's Your Only Music.

Though A Quarrel In The Streets Is A Thing To Be Hated, The Energies Displayed In It Are Fine; The Commonest Man Shows A Grace In His Quarrel.

We Have Oftener Than Once Endeavoured To Attach Some Meaning To That Aphorism, Vulgarly Imputed To Shaftesbury, Which However We Can Find Nowhere In His Works, That "ridicule Is The Test Of Truth."

Thou, Silent Form, Dost Tease Us Out Of Thought As Doth Eternity.

One Of The Most Mysterious Of Semi-speculations Is, One Would Suppose, That Of One Mind's Imagining Into Another

All Clean And Comfortable I Sit Down To Write.

She Hurried At His Words, Beset With Fears, For There Were Sleeping Dragons All Around.

Love Is My Religion - I Could Die For It.

Health Is My Expected Heaven.

To Stay Youthful, Stay Useful.

O, Sorrow! Why Dost Borrow Heart's Lightness From The Merriment Of May?

I Came To Feel How Far Above All Fancy, Pride, And Fickle Maidenhood, All Earthly Pleasure, All Imagined Good, Was The Warm Tremble Of A Devout Kiss.

Heard Melodies Are Sweet, But Those Unheard Are Sweeter: Therefore, Ye Soft Pipes, Play On; Not To The Sensual Ear, But, More Endear'd, Pipe To The Spirit Ditties Of No Tone. Fair Youth, Beneath The Trees, Thou Canst Not Leave Thy Song, Nor Ever Can Those Trees Be Bare; Bold Lover, Never, Never Canst Thou Kiss, Though Winning Near The Goal Yet, Do Not Grieve; She Cannot Fade, Though Thou Hast Not Thy Bliss, For Ever Wilt Thou Love, And She Be Fair!

A Poem Needs Understanding Through The Senses. The Point Of Diving In A Lake Is Not Immediately To Swim To The Shore; It’s To Be In The Lake, To Luxuriate In The Sensation Of Water. You Do Not Work The Lake Out. It Is An Experience Beyond Thought. Poetry Soothes And Emboldens The Soul To Accept Mystery.

Open Afresh Your Rounds Of Starry Folds, Ye Ardent Marigolds.

The Redbreast Whistles From A Garden-croft; And Gathering Swallows Twitter In The Skies.

The Genius Of Poetry Must Work Out Its Own Salvation In A Man; It Cannot Be Matured By Law And Precept, But By Sensation And Watchfulness In Itself. That Which Is Creative Must Create Itself.

O Latest Born And Loveliest Vision Far Of All Olympus' Faded Hierarchy.

And Shade The Violets, That They May Bind The Moss In Leafy Nets.

Whatever The Imagination Seizes As Beauty Must Be Truth -whether It Existed Before Or Not

There Is A Budding Morrow In Midnight.

Poetry Should Be Great And Unobtrusive, A Thing Which Enters Into One's Soul, And Does Not Startle It Or Amaze It With Itself, But With Its Subject.

I Could Be Martyred For My Religion. Love Is My Religion And I Could Die For That. I Could Die For You.

Nothing Ever Becomes Real Till Experienced – Even A Proverb Is No Proverb Until Your Life Has Illustrated It

Don't Be Discouraged By A Failure. It Can Be A Positive Experience. Failure Is, In A Sense, The Highway To Success, Inasmuch As Every Discovery Of What Is False Leads Us To Seek Earnestly After What Is True, And Every Fresh Experience Points Out Some Form Of Error Which We Shall Afterwards Carefully Avoid.

I Have Met With Women Whom I Really Think Would Like To Be Married To A Poem And To Be Given Away By A Novel.

I Had A Dove And The Sweet Dove Died; And I Have Thought It Died Of Grieving: O, What Could It Grieve For? Its Feet Were Tied, With A Silken Thread Of My Own Hands' Weaving.

Where The Nightingale Doth Sing Not A Senseless, Tranced Thing, But Divine Melodious Truth.

What Occasions The Greater Part Of The World's Quarrels? Simply This: Two Minds Meet And Do Not Understand Each Other In Time Enough To Prevent Any Shock Of Surprise At The Conduct Of Either Party.

Was It A Vision Or A Waking Dream? Fled Is That Music--do I Wake Or Sleep?

The Excellence Of Every Art Is Its Intensity.

I Wish You Could Invent Some Means To Make Me At All Happy Without You. Every Hour I Am More And More Concentrated In You; Everything Else Tastes Like Chaff In My Mouth.

No Stir Of Air Was There, Not So Much Life As On A Summer's Day Robs Not One Light Seed From The Feather'd Grass, But Where The Dead Leaf Fell, There Did It Rest.

Neither Poetry, Nor Ambition, Nor Love Have Any Alertness Of Countenance As They Pass By Me.

What Is There In Thee, Moon! That Thou Should'st Move My Heart So Potently?

Adieu! Adieu! Thy Plaintive Anthem Fades Past The Near Meadows, Over The Still Stream, Up The Hill-side; And Now 'tis Buried Deep In The Next Valley-glades: Was It A Vision, Or A Waking Dream? Fled Is That Music:--do I Wake Or Sleep?

A Man's Life Of Any Worth Is A Continual Allegory.

I Always Made An Awkward Bow.

To Bear All Naked Truths, And To Envisage Circumstance, All Calm, That Is The Top Of Sovereignty

When I Behold, Upon The Night's Starr'd Face, Huge Cloudy Symbols Of A High Romance, And Think That I May Never Live To Trace Their Shadows, With The Magic Hand Of Chance.

I Have An Habitual Feeling Of My Real Life Having Past, And That I Am Leading A Posthumous Existence.

The Genius Of Poetry Must Work Out Its Own Salvation In A Man; It Cannot Be Matured By Law And Precept, But By Sensation And Watchfulness In Itself. That Which Is Creative Must Create Itself - In Endymion, I Leaped Headlong Into The Sea, And Thereby Have Become Better Acquainted With The Soundings, The Quicksands, And The Rocks, Than If I Had Stayed Upon The Green Shore, And Piped A Silly Pipe, And Took Tea And Comfortable Sdvice.

Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast As Thou Art--- Not In Lone Splendour Hung Aloft The Night And Watching, With Eternal Lids Apart, Like Nature's Patient, Sleepless Eremite, The Moving Waters At Their Priestlike Task Of Pure Ablution Round Earth's Human Shores, Or Gazing On The New Soft-fallen Mask Of Snow Upon The Mountains And The Moors--- No---yet Still Stedfast, Still Unchangeable, Pillowed Upon My Fair Love's Ripening Breast, To Feel For Ever Its Soft Fall And Swell, Awake For Ever In A Sweet Unrest, Still, Still To Hear Her Tender-taken Breath, And So Live Ever---or Else Swoon In Death.

My Creed Is Love And You Are Its Only Tenet.

Tall Oaks Branch Charmed By The Earnest Stars Dream And So Dream All Night Without A Stir.

On A Lone Winter Evening, When The Frost Has Wrought A Silence.

Praise Or Blame Has But A Momentary Effect On The Man Whose Love Of Beauty In The Abstract Makes Him A Severe Critic On His Own Works.

The Imagination May Be Compared To Adam's Dream-he Awoke And Found It Truth.

Beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty

A Man's Life Of Any Worth Is A Continual Allegory, And Very Few Eyes Can See The Mystery Of His Life, A Life Like The Scriptures, Figurative.

He, Who Is Gone, Was One Of The Very Kindest Friends I Possessed, And Yet He Was Not Kinder Perhaps To Me, Than To Others. His Intense Mind And Powerful Feelings Would, I Truly Believe, Have Done The World Some Service, Had His Life Been Spared But He Was Of Too Sensitive A Nature And Thus He Was Destroyed!

So, When Dark Thoughts My Boding Spirit Shroud, Sweet Hope! Celestial Influence Round Me Shed Waving Thy Silver Pinions O'er My Head.

No Sooner Had I Stepp'd Into These Pleasures Than I Began To Think Of Rhymes And Measures: The Air That Floated By Me Seem'd To Say 'write! Thou Wilt Never Have A Better Day.

I Would Jump Down Etna For Any Public Good - But I Hate A Mawkish Popularity.

I Will Clamber Through The Clouds And Exist.

The Imagination Of A Boy Is Healthy, And The Mature Imagination Of A Man Is Healthy; But There Is A Space Of Life Between, In Which The Soul Is In A Ferment, The Character Undecided, The Way Of Life Uncertain, The Ambition Thick-sighted: Thence Proceeds Mawkishness.

I Will Imagine You Venus Tonight And Pray, Pray, Pray To Your Star Like A Heathen.

I Almost Wish We Were Butterflies And Liv'd But Three Summer Days - Three Such Days With You I Could Fill With More Delight Than Fifty Common Years Could Ever Contain.

Shed No Tear - O, Shed No Tear! The Flower Will Bloom Another Year. Weep No More - O, Weep No More! Young Buds Sleep In The Root's White Core.

Blessed Is The Healthy Nature; It Is The Coherent, Sweetly Co-operative, Not Incoherent, Self-distracting, Self-destructive One!

O For Ten Years, That I May Overwhelm / Myself In Poesy; So I May Do The Deed / That My Own Soul Has To Itself Decreed.

A Thing Of Beauty Is A Joy For Ever: Its Loveliness Increases; It Will Never Pass Into Nothingness; But Still Will Keep A Bower Quiet For Us, And A Sleep Full Of Sweet Dreams, And Health, And Quiet Breathing.

My Heart Aches, And A Drowsy Numbness Pains/ My Sense, As Though Of Hemlock I Had Drunk.

Conversation Is Not A Search After Knowledge, But An Endeavor At Effect.

There Is Not A Fiercer Hell Than The Failure In A Great Object.

Trending Author

Garrison Keillor

Category