Poetry quotes

Our soul from us is infinitely far. However much we give our thoughts the will To be our soul and gesture it abroad, Our hearts are incommunicable still. In what we show ourselves we are ignored.

The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged

By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. Unto our very selves we are abridged When we would utter to our thought our being. We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams, And each to each other dreams of others’ dreams.

In what we show ourselves we are ignored. The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. Unto our very selves we are abridged When we would utter to our thought our being.

We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,

And each to each other dreams of others’ dreams.

The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. Unto our very selves we are abridged When we would utter to our thought our being. We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,

And each to each other dreams of others’ dreams.

If that apparent part of life’s delight Our tingled flesh-sense circumscribes were seen By aught save reflex and co-carnal sight, Joy, flesh and life might prove but a gross screen.

Conjecture cannot fit to the seen world A garment of its thought untorn or covering, Or with its stuffed garb forge an otherworld Without itself its dead deceit discovering; So, all being possible, an idle thought may Less idle thoughts, self-known no truer, dismay.

How many masks wear we, and undermasks,

Upon our countenance of soul, and when, If for self-sport the soul itself unmasks, Knows it the last mask off and the face plain? The true mask feels no inside to the mask But looks out of the mask by co-masked eyes.

What consciousness makes more by consciousness, It makes less, for it makes it less itself, My sense of love could not my love rich-dress Did it not for it spend love’s own love-pelf. Poet’s love’s this (as in these words I prove thee):

I love my love for thee more than I love thee.

We are born at sunset and we die ere morn, And the whole darkness of the world we know, How can we guess its truth, to darkness born, The obscure consequence of absent glow? Only the stars do teach us light.

Poet’s love’s this (as in these words I prove thee): I love my love for thee more than I love thee.

We are born at sunset and we die ere morn,

And the whole darkness of the world we know, How can we guess its truth, to darkness born, The obscure consequence of absent glow? Only the stars do teach us light.

All this is useless, for joy’s in Enjoying, not in thinking of enjoying. Its mere thought-mirroring gainst itself doth sin, By mere reflecting solid life destroying, Yet the more thought we take to thought to prove It must not think, doth further from joy move.

My love, and not I, is the egoist.

My love for thee loves itself more than thee; Ay, more than me, in whom it doth exist, And makes me live that it may feed on me. In the country of bridges the bridge is More real than the shores it doth unsever;

My love, and not I, is the egoist. My love for thee loves itself more than thee; Ay, more than me, in whom it doth exist, And makes me live that it may feed on me.

In the country of bridges the bridge is More real than the shores it doth unsever;

So in our world, all of Relation, this Is true—that truer is Love than either lover.

what it shows By true show’s false and nowhere by true place. Thought clouds our life’s day-sense with strangeness, yet Never from strangeness more than that it’s strange Doth buy our perplexed thinking, for we get But the words’ sense from words—knowledge, truth, change.

We know the world is false, not what is true.

Yet we think on, knowing we ne’er shall know.

We know the world is false, not what is true. Yet we think on, knowing we ne’er shall know.

How yesterday is long ago!

The past Is a fixed infinite distance from to-day, And bygone things, the first-lived as the last, In irreparable sameness far away.

The rain outside was cold in Hadrian’s soul.

The boy lay dead On the low couch, on whose denuded whole, To Hadrian’s eyes, whose sorrow was a dread, The shadowy light of Death’s eclipse was shed.

Thus went he, like a lover who is waiting, From place to place in his dim doubting mind. Now was his hope a great intention fating Its wish to being, now felt he was blind In some point of his seen wish undefined.

When love meets death we know not what to feel.

When death foils love we know not what to know. Now did his doubt hope, now did his hope doubt; Now what his wish dreamed the dream’s sense did flout And to a sullen emptiness congeal. Then again the gods fanned love’s darkening glow.

The gods came now And bore something away, no sense knows how, On unseen arms of power and repose.

We pass and dream. Earth smiles. Virtue is rare.

Age, duty, gods weigh on our conscious bliss. Hope for the best and for the worst prepare. That sum of purposed wisdom speaks in this.

I conquered. Far barbarians hear my name.

Men were dice in my game, But to my throw myself did lesser come: I threw dice, Fate the sum.

Some were as loved, some as prizes prized. A natural wife to the fed man my mate, I was sufficient to whom I sufficed. I moved, slept, bore and aged without a fate.

We, that both lie here, loved. This denies us. My lost hand crumbles where her breasts’ lack is.

Love’s known, each lover is anonymous.

We both felt fair. Kiss, for that was our kiss.

I for my city’s want fought far and fell. I could not tell What she did want, that knew she wanted me. Her walls be free, Her speech keep such as I spoke, and men die, That she die not, as I.

Life lived us, not we life.

We, as bees sip, Looked, talked and had. Trees grow as we did last. We loved the gods but as we see a ship. Never aware of being aware, we passed.

Life lived us, not we life. We, as bees sip, Looked, talked and had. Trees grow as we did last. We loved the gods but as we see a ship.

Never aware of being aware, we passed.

The work is done. The hammer is laid down. The artisans, that built the slow-grown town, Have been succeeded by those who still built. All this is something lack-of-something screening. The thought whole has no meaning But lies by Time’s wall like a pitcher spilt.

This covers me, that erst had the blue sky. This soil treads me, that once I trod. My hand Put these inscriptions here, half knowing why; Last, and hence seeing all, of the passing band.

Set ope all shutters, that the day come in Like a sea or a din!

Let not a nook of useless shade compel Thoughts of the night, or tell The mind’s comparing that some things are sad, For this day all are glad!