Poem Quotes

Be nothing which thou art not

I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea,But we loved with a love that was more...

I have studied many timesThe marble which was chiseled for me—A boat with a furled sail at rest in a...

All day long you sit and sew,Stitch life down for fear it grow,Stitch life down for fear we guessAt ...

The fusty showman fumbles, must Fit in a particle of dustThe universe, for fear it gainIts freedom f...

Solo For Ear-Trumpet The carriage brushes through the brightLeaves (violent jets from life to light)...

Answers I kept my answers small and kept them near;Big questions bruised my mind but still I letSmal...

Your soul: pure glucose edged with hintsOf tentative and half-soiled tints

TO what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with t...

My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone....

This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doorsMany a frozen night, and merrilyAnswered staid drink...

Sweetest smile is made saddest tear-drop!

He drew a circle that shut me out-Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout.But love and I had the wit to wi...

How—I didn't know anyword for it—how "unlikely". . .How had I come to be here,like them, and overhea...

One has to commit a painting,' said Degas,'the way one commits a crime.

Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!O falling fire and piercing cryand panic, and a weak mailed fistclench...

After the fierce midsummer all ablaze Has burned itself to ashes, and expires In the intensity of it...

Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.

We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble.

Parting is all we know of Heaven,and all we need of Hell.

In snow thou comestThou shalt go with resuming groundThe sweet derision of thx crowAnd Glee's advanc...

The Poets light but Lamps-Themselves-go out-

THE MOON was but a chin of gold A night or two ago, And now she turns her perfect face Upon the worl...

In lands I never saw, they say, Immortal Alps look down,Whose bonnets touch the firmament,Whose sand...

The Garden En robe de parade. - SamainLike a skein of loose silk blown against a wallShe walks by th...

The little boy was looking for his voice.(The king of the crickets had it.)In a drop of waterthe lit...

Don't ask me any questions. I've seen how things that seek their way find their void instead.

El remanso de airebajo la rama del eco.El remanso del aguabajo fronda de luceros.El remanso de tu bo...

All letters of love are Ridiculous. They wouldn’t be love letters if they were not Ridiculous.

… my words are lovewhich willfully parades inits room, refusing to move.

… and I’ll be happy here and happy there, fullof tea and tears

Stars are out and there is seaenough beneath the glistening earthto bear me toward the futurewhich i...

I want to build / and raise anew / Theseus' Temple and the Stadiums / and where Pericles livedBut th...

Sharply the menacing wind sweeps overThe bending poplars, newly bare,And the dark ribbons of the chi...

Where’s the trail to Cold Mountain?Cold Mountain? There’s no clear way.Ice, in summer, is still froz...

What we call a poem is mostly what is not there on the page. The strength of any poem is the poems t...

You sit at the edge of the world,I am in a crater that's no more.Words without lettersStanding in th...

Iron helmets will not save/Even heroes from the grave/Good man's blood will drain away/While the wic...

Up on the Brooklyn Bridge a man is standing in agony, waiting to jump, or waiting to write a poem, o...

How Beautiful is the rain!After the dust and heat,In the broad and fiery street,In the narrow lane,H...

The Wolf trots to and fro,The world lies deep in snow,The raven from the birch tree flies,But nowher...

...like that star of the waning summer who beyond all stars rises bathed in the ocean stream to glit...

And was it his destined part / Only one moment in his life / To be close to your heart?

Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass growsThe West Wind goes walking, and about the...

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.

Journey’s endIn western lands beneath the SunThe flowers may rise in Spring,The trees may bud, the w...

Not all that have fallen are vanquished.

Roads Go Ever OnRoads go ever ever on,Over rock and under tree,By caves where never sun has shone,By...

Is Virgin you trying to fathom me

The IdealThis is where I came from.I passed this way.This should not be shameful Or hard to say.A se...

Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for ...

Every poem is an infant labored into birth and I am drenched with sweating effort, tired from the pa...

And the pebbles fight each other as rocks/And my father bends among them/Two hands outstretching up ...

Almighty Freedom! give my venturous songThe force, the charm that to thy voice belong;Tis thine to s...

How many people came and stayed a certain time,Uttered light or dark speech that became part of youL...

I'm heading for a clean-named placelike Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o'-lantern, will get therewitho...

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.

A little bunny or some kind of ferret was probablythere too, and bore witness as only rodents can.

When he was in college, a famous poet made a useful distinction for him. He had drunk enough in the ...

Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is; Me it sucked first, ...

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me will full hands; How could I answer the child?......

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--Not in lone splendour hung aloft the nightAnd watchi...

(...) It,s hard not to be able. There, look there!/ I cannot get the movement nor the light;/Sometim...

She's kind of a walking poem, she's this perfect beauty...but at the same time very deep, very smart...

I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.

I think that I shall never seeA poem lovely as a tree.A tree whose hungry mouth is pressedAgainst th...

Come sleep with me: We won't make Love, Love will make us.

I love your round head,the brilliant green,the watching blue,these letters,this world, you.I am very...

For [W. B.] Yeats magic was not so much a kind of poetry as poetry a kind of magic, and the object o...

My father's love was always strongMy mother's glamour lives on and on.Yet still inside I felt alone,...

Cheap little rhymesA cheap little tuneAre sometimes as dangerousAs a sliver of the moon.

LIBERTY! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY!True anyhow no matter how manyLiars use those words.

What happens to a dream deferred?

I heard of a manwho says words so beautifullythat if he only speaks their namewomen give themselves ...

Let craft, ambition, spite, Be quenched in Reason's night, Till weakness turn to might, Till what is...

A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,Lingering onward dreamilyIn an evening of July —Children three that nestl...

I have a fairy by my side Which says I must not sleep, When once in pain I loudly cried It said "You...

The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships - and sealing wax -...

It's easy to convince men to love you, Puck. All you have to do is be a mountain they have to climb ...

You do not seem to realize that beauty is a liability ratherthanan asset - that in view of the fact ...

TO VICTOR HUGO OF MY CROW PLUTO “Even when the bird is walking we know that it has wings.”—VICTOR HU...

In the days of Prismatic Colornot in the days of Adam and Eve, but when Adam was alone; when there w...

TO A GIRAFFE If it is unpermissible, in fact fatal to be personal and undesirable to be literal—detr...

ROSEMARY Beauty and Beauty’s son and rosemary— Venus and Love, her son, to speak plainly— born of th...

And now dear little children, who may this story read, To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you n...

Language is rich, and malleable. It is a living, vibrant material, and every part of a poem works in...

Of course! the path to heavendoesn't lie down in flat miles.It's in the imaginationwith which you pe...

And then I feel the sun itselfas it blazes over the hills,like a million flowers on fire --clearly I...

to live in this worldyou must be ableto do three thingsto love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your...

I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple -- or a green field -- a place to enter, and in whi...

I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple--or a green field--a place to enter, and in which t...

DAISIESIt is possible, I suppose that sometimewe will learn everythingthere is to learn: what the wo...

Up the still, glistening beaches,Up the creeks we will hie,Over banks of bright seaweedThe ebb-tide ...

When Great Trees FallWhen great trees fall,rocks on distant hills shudder,lions hunker downin tall g...

Out of the huts of history's shameI riseUp from a past that's rooted in painI riseI'm a black ocean,...

You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness...

Lovers think quite different thoughtswhile lying side by side.

If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe.Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; thatwitches a...

I don’t think that I’ve been in love as suchAlthough I liked a few folk pretty wellLove must be vast...

Poems ancient and modern prowled the ice floes in bear form, filled with words that could wound with...