Dante Alighieri
Step into this experience with butterflies in your bones; with a nervous feeling so beautiful, you And to a place I come where nothing shines. — Dante Alighieri, Inferno, The Divine Comedy (1320)
Category: Epic Poetry
Dante Alighieri
Midway upon the journey of our life,I found myself within a forest dark,For the straight foreward pathway had been lost. — Dante Alighieri, Inferno, the Divine Comedy (1320)
Charles Wright
I empty myself with lightUntil I become morning. — Charles Wright, from “33,” Littlefoot: A Poem (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007)
Vladimir Nabokov
Consciousness is a message scribbled in the dark. — Vladimir Nabokov, from Pale Fire, “Canto Two.” (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962, corrected edition first published by Vintage International, 1989)
Homer
With that she loosed from her breasts the breastband, pierced and alluring, with every kind of enchantment woven through it . . . There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad. — Homer, The Iliad: Book XIV. (Period: Bronze Age.Traditional dating:… Continue reading Homer
Abolqasem Ferdowsi
Our lives pass from us like the wind, and why Should wise men grieve to know that they must die? The Judas blossom fades, the lovely face Of light is dimmed, and darkness takes its place. ― Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. (Penguin Classics; Deluxe edition February 27, 2007)
Aeschylus
He who learns must suffer And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget Falls drop by drop upon the heart, And in our own despite, against our will, Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. ― Aeschylus, The Orestei. 458 BCE
Dante Alighieri
The first three hours of night were almost spent The time that every star shines down on us When Love appeared to me so suddenly That I still shudder at the memory. Joyous Love seemed to me, the while he held My heart within his hands, and in his arms My lady lay asleep wrapped… Continue reading Dante Alighieri
Charles Wright
Give me a thing that says nothing. The wind, for instance, A wisdom that comes from ten thousand miles to the west. The trees, for instance, stenographers Of every sentence it isn’t able to utter. The grass that assembles them all in its green pages. — Charles Wright, from “26,” Littlefoot: A… Continue reading Charles Wright
Charles Wright
When what you write about is what you see, what do you write about when it’s dark? — Charles Wright, from “32,” Littlefoot: A Poem (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007)
The Vale of Soul-Making 