Great Throughts Treasury

"Never try to reason the prejudice out of a person. It was not reasoned into them and cannot be reasoned out."

"Marriage I think For women Is the best of opiates. It kills the thoughts That think about the thoughts, It is the best of opiates. So said Maria. But too long in solitude she'd dwelt, And too long her thoughts had felt Their strength. So when the man drew near, Out popped her thoughts and covered him with fear. Poor Maria! Better that she had kept her thoughts on a chain, For now she's alone again and all in pain; She sighs for the man that went and the thoughts that stay To trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day."

"Dear little Bog-Face, Why are you so cold? And why do you lie with your eyes shut?-- You are not very old. I am a Child of this World And a Child of Grace, And Mother, I shall be glad when it is over, I am Bog-Face."

"My Muse sits forlorn she wishes she had not been born. She sits in the cold no word she says is ever told."

"Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning."

"There is a god in whom I do not believe Yet to this god my love stretches, This god whom I do not believe in is My whole life, my life and I am his. Everything that I have of pleasure and pain (Of pain, of bitter pain and men's contempt) I give this god for him to feed upon As he is my whole life and I am his. When I am dead I hope that he will eat Everything I have been and have not been And crunch and feed upon it and grow fat Eating my life all up as it is his."

"Raise from your bed of languor Raise from your bed of dismay Your friends will not come tomorrow As they did not come today You must rely on yourself, they said, You must rely on yourself, Oh but I find this pill so bitter said the poor man As he took it from the shelf Crying, O sweet Death come to me Come to me for company, Sweet Death it is only you I can Constrain for company."

"And soon all our minds will be flat as a pancake, With no room for genius exaltation or heartache. And our children and theirs will preen, smirk and chatter, With not even the sense to ask what is the matter."

"Hope and desire, All unfulfilled, Have more than rope And hangman killed."

"Wild creatures' eyes, the colonel said, Are innocent and fathomless And when I look at them I see That they are not aware of me And oh I find and oh I bless A comfort in this emptiness They only see me when they want To pounce upon me at the hunt; But in the tame variety There couches an anxiety As if they yearned, yet knew not what They yearned for, nor they yearned for not. And so my dog would look at me And it was pitiful to see Such love and such dependency. The human heart is not at ease With animals that look like these."

"It is the privilege of the rich To waste the time of the poor To water with tears in secret A tree that grows in secret That bears fruit in secret That ripened falls to the ground in secret And manures the parent tree Oh the wicked tree of hatred and the secret The sap rising and the tears falling."

"All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet."

"Bad women poets are better characters, they seldom... get drunk... go to prison... shoot the pianist. Their faults are soul fullness and banality. They like to commune (who does not) with the deity, nature, and themselves, but their words do not quite carry the traffic... some bad men poets can persuade people... that tricks and shocks are a substitute for talent... good poets of either sex are above these quarrels."

"I am hungry to be interrupted forever and ever amen."

"I may be smelly and I may be old, Rough in my pebbles, reedy in my pools, But where my fish float by I bless their swimming, And I like the people to bathe in me especially women."

"I don't think Auden liked my poetry very much, he's very Anglican."

"Children who paddle where the ocean bed shelves steeply must take great care they do not, Paddle too deeply.'"

"But one wants the idea of Death, you know, as something large and unknowable, something that allows a person to stretch himself out. Especially one wants it if one is tired. Or perhaps what one wants is simply a release from sensation, from all consciousness forever."

"If I lie down on my bed I must be here, but if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere."

"If there wasn't death, I think you couldn't go on."

"I'm sorry to say my dear wife is a dreamer, and as she dreams she gets paler and leaner. Then be off to your Dream, with his fly-away hat, I'll stay with the girls who are happy and fat."

"I'll have your heart, if not by gift my knife shall carve it out. I'll have your heart, your life."

"I'm alive today, therefore I'm just as much a part of our time as everybody else. The times will just have to enlarge themselves to make room for me, won't they, and for everybody else."

"Love is not love that wounded bleeds And bleeding sullies slow. Come death within my hands and I Unto my love will go."

"Prate not to me of suicide, Faint heart in battle, not for pride I say Endure, but that such end denied Makes welcomer yet the death that's to be died."

"There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god."

"My friendships, they are a very strong part of my life, they are as light as gossamer but also they are as strong as steel. And I cannot throw them off, nor altogether do with them or without them. And I love them at the point where they say: It is nice to see you again. And I love them too at the point when they say: Good-bye, come again soon. The rhythm of friendship is a very good rhythm."

"These thoughts are depressing I know. They are depressing, I wish I was more cheerful, it is more pleasant, also it is a duty, we should smile as well as submitting to the purpose of One Above who is experimenting with various mixtures of human character which goes best, all is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us. There I go again. Smile, smile, and get some work to do then you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go."

"Thus spake the awful aging couple whose heart the years had turned to rubble. But the little children, to save any brother, let it in at one ear and out at the other."

"Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, for if she were not so loving, she would not be so miserable."