Poem Quotes

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...

i am really colored & really sad sometimes & you hurt memore than i ever danced outta/ i am ready to...

Very Like a WhaleOne thing that literature would be greatly the better forWould be a more restricted...

The Last LeafI saw him once before,As he passed by the door,And againThe pavement stones resound,As ...

I will never hurt you.I will always help you.If you are hungryIll give you my food.If you are fright...

tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that bri...

To harden the earththe rocks took charge:instantlythey grew wings:the rocksthat soared:the survivors...

I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from th...

Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.

At night I dream that you and I are two plantsthat grew together, roots entwined,and that you know t...

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came ...

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

Maple. MaypoleCatch and carry.Ash and Ember.Elderberry.Woolen. Woman.Moon at night.Willow. Window.Ca...

Maple. MaypoleCatch and carry.Ash and Ember.Elderberry.Woolen. Woman.Moon at night.Willow. Window.Ca...

A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, ...

Poems are never finished - just abandoned

We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to ...

And in a mad tranceStrike with our spirit's knifeInvulnerable nothingsWe decayLike corpses in a char...

Most things may never happen: this one will.

I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you're an artist, by childr...

Everyone should be forcibly transplanted to another continent from their family at the age of three.

If grief could burn outLike a sunken coal,The heart would rest quiet, The unrent soulBe still as a v...

Free me as free is the forest fire, as is the thunder that laughs aloud and hurls defiance to darkne...

In learning a language, when from mere words we reach the laws of words, we have gained a great deal...

His gaze, bluntedby the unnumbered processionof iron bars, uncountedas his softly padded steps.Smoot...

Already the ripening barberries are redAnd the old asters hardly breathe in their beds.The man who i...

Even when the lights go out, even when someone says to me: "It's over---," even when from the stage ...

Line in nature is not found;Unit and universe are round;In vain produced, all rays return;Evil will ...

Ralph Waldo Emerson“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a...

When I was young and miserable and prettyAnd poor, I'd wishWhat all girls wish: to have a husband,A ...

From the time I began to read, as a child, I loved to feel their heft in my hand and the warm spot c...

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,O, what a panic's in thy breastie!

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;A-c...

How can I wear the harness of toilAnd sweat at the daily round,While in my soul foreverThe drums of ...

The mind-is not the heart.I may yet live, as I know others live,To wish in vain to let go with the m...

I have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.I have outwal...

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloudAnd goes down burning into the gulf below,No voice in ...

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.