Quote for the Week (Belated)

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion.
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us
An’ ev’n Devotion

–Robert Burns, “To a Louse”, st. 8 (1786); courtesy of Wikiquote.

Quote for the Week

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

–T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, “Burnt Norton”, II; courtesy of Wikiquote.

Quote for the Week

 

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.

–Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”

Quote for the Week

The Journey Of The Magi by T.S. Eliot
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

–T. S. Eliot; courtesy of here.

Quote for the Week

“Hope” is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —
And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm —

–Emily Dickinson, Poem 254 in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960), edited by Thomas H. Johnson; courtesy of Wikiquote.

Quote for the Week

Mezzo Cammin

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Half of my life is gone, and I have let

   The years slip from me and have not fulfilled

   The aspiration of my youth, to build

   Some tower of song with lofty parapet.

Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret

   Of restless passions that would not be stilled,

   But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,

   Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;

Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past

   Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—

   A city in the twilight dim and vast,

With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—

   And hear above me on the autumnal blast

   The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.

–courtesy of here.

For Independence Day: “I Hear America Singing”

 

I’ve posted this before, back on March 28th, 2014 as part of my “Daily Whitman” series; but it’s a great poem for the Fourth of July, non-jingoistic and speaking of what makes the American project truly great.  May we continue to emulate it.  Enjoy, and Happy Independence Day.

I Hear America Singing

  I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
  Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
  The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
  The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
  The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
      singing on the steamboat deck,
  The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as
      he stands,
  The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning,
      or at noon intermission or at sundown,
  The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,
      or of the girl sewing or washing,
  Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
  The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young
      fellows, robust, friendly,
  Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Quote for the Week

Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee:
All things pass;
God never changes.
Patience attains
All that it strives for.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.

–“Poem IX”, in Complete Works St. Teresa of Avila (1963) edited by E. Allison Peers, Vol. 3, p. 288; courtesy of Wikiquote

Quote for the Week

Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati,
Casta pudicitiam servat domus.

His cares are eased with intervals of bliss;
His little children, climbing for a kiss,
Welcome their father’s late return at night;
His faithful bed is crown’d with chaste delight.

–Virgil, Georgics (29 BC), Book II, lines 523-524 (translated by John Dryden); courtesy of Wikiquote

Quote for the Week

The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him “personal.” Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

–T. S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent; courtesy of Wikiquote.