Great Throughts Treasury

"Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind."

"And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair."

"And Truth, in sunny vest arrayed, by whose the tarsel's eyes were made."

"And thou, thou rich-haired youth of morn, and all thy subject life was born!"

"And with Yeats you lean against a broken pear tree, the day hooded by low clouds."

"Bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!"

"Always mistrust a subordinate who never finds fault with his superior."

"All the shad'wy tribes of Mind, in braided dance their murmurs joined."

"Beloved, till life can charm no more And mourned, till Pity's self be dead."

"Between the dark lakes where the dark rivers flow there is no ferry waiting on the shore of rock and no man holding a long oar, ready to take your last coin. This is the real earth and the real water it contains."

"But all they want to do Is tie the poem to a chair with rope And torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose To find out what it really means."

"But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide No sedge-crown'd sister now attend, Now waft me from the green hill's side Whose cold turf hides the buried friend!"

"But thou, O hope, with eyes so fair, what was thy delighted measure? Still it whisper'd promised pleasure, and bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!"

"But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her, barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor. She will look in at me with her thin arms extended, offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light."

"By fairy hands their knell is rung By forms unseen their dirge is sung."

"Each lonely scene shall thee restore; for thee the tear be duly shed; belov'd till life can charm no more, and mourn'd till Pity's self be dead."

"Each one is a gift, no doubt, mysteriously placed in your waking hand or set upon your forehead moments before you open your eyes."

"Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole."

"Filled with fury, rapt, inspir'd."

"Hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires."

"Here's to the wind blowing against this lighted house and to the vast, windless spaces between the stars."

"Hold each strange tale devoutly true."

"How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, by all their country's wishes blest!... By fairy hands their knell is rung, by forms unseen their dirge is sung."

"I think humor is a very serious thing. I use it as a way of weakening the reader's defenses so that I can more easily take him to something more."

"I think my work has to do with a sense that we are attempting, all the time, to create a logical, rational path through the day. To the left and right there are an amazing set of distractions that we usually can't afford to follow. But the poet is willing to stop anywhere… And it's that willingness to slow down and examine the mysterious bits of fluff in our lives that is the poet's interest."

"I want my mind to be a sail, susceptible to any breeze that might be blowing across the lake of consciousness."

"I want to remove my hat, close my eyes, and feel the sun, warm and intermittent, on my face."

"I would go into the kitchen for coffee and on the way back to the page, curled in its roller, I would light one up and feel its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee."

"I would rather see words out on their own, away from their families and the warehouse of Roget wandering the world where they sometimes fall in love with a completely different word."

"If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear."

"In a while, one of us will go up to bed and the other one will follow. Then we will slip below the surface of the night into miles of water, drifting down and down to the dark, soundless bottom until the weight of dreams pulls us lower still."

"In hollow murmurs died away."

"In notes by distance made more sweet."

"In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong."

"In unsettled times like these, when world cultures, countries and religions are facing off in violent confrontations, we could benefit from the reminder that storytelling is common to all civilizations. Whether in the form of a sprawling epic or a pointed ballad, the story is our most ancient method of making sense out of experience and of preserving the past."

"In yonder Grave a Druid lies Where slowly winds the Stealing Wave! The Year's best Sweets shall duteous rise To deck its Poet's sylvan Grave!"

"It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me, I would shine. But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. I bleed."

"Long by the loved Enthusiast wooed, himself in some diviner mood."

"My pen moves along the page like the snout of a strange animal shaped like a human arm and dressed in the sleeve of a loose green sweater."

"Not to say that authors are all such sourpusses, but you meet the author in the best possible way, on the written page. I am at my best there, more patient, more thoughtful."

"Now Air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd Bat, with short shrill Shriek flits by on leathern Wing, or where the Beetle winds his small but sullen Horn."

"O music, sphere descended maid, friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid."

"Poetry is my cheap means of transportation. By the end of the poem the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield."

"Poetry is the history of the human heart, and it continues to record the history of human emotion, whether it's celebration or grief or whatever it may be."

"Prior to Wordsworth, humor was an essential part of poetry. I mean, they don't call them Shakespeare comedies for nothing."

"'T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild."

"It means treasury, but it is just a place where words congregate with their relatives, a big park where hundreds of family reunions are always being held."

"The redbreast oft, at evening hours, shall kindly lend his little aid, with hoary moss, and gathered flowers, to deck the ground where thou art laid."

"The sunlight flashes off your windshield, and when I look up into the small, posted mirror, I watch you diminish--my echo, my twin--and vanish around a curve in this whip of a road we can't help traveling together."

"Then there were the wits, using their last breath to exhale a line, a devastating capper, as if the world were simply a large gallery buzzing with people, and now it was time to throw on a long scarf and make an exit, leaving it to someone else to close the door."