W.B. Yeats
For it is love that I am seeking for,But of a beautiful, unheard-of kindThat is not in the world. — W.B. Yeats, from The Shadowy Waters: A Dramatic Poem (BBC, 1959)
For it is love that I am seeking for,But of a beautiful, unheard-of kindThat is not in the world. — W.B. Yeats, from The Shadowy Waters: A Dramatic Poem (BBC, 1959)
I kiss you and the world begins to fade. – W.B. Yeats, The Land of Heart’s Desire ( Jennings Press, August 25, 2008) Originally published 1894.
near me,Come near, come near, come near — Ah, leave me stillA little space for the rose–breath to fill! — W.B. Yeats, from “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time,” The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (Scribner; 2nd Revised edition, September 9, 1996) Originally published 1950.
I never find myself alone within the embracement of rocks & hills, a traveller up an alpine road, but my spirit courses, drives, and eddies, like a Leaf in Autumn: a wild activity, of thoughts, imaginations, feelings, and impulses of motion, rises up from within me. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from a letter to Thomas… Continue reading Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving into a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is a experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to… Continue reading Ben Whishaw
A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. — Percy Bysshe Shelley, from “A Defence of Poetry” (1821)
Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange smell in the south wind. That vague fragrance made my heart ache with longing, and it seemed to me that it was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its… Continue reading Rabindranath Tagore
If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart—thy love for me still waits for my love. — Rabindranath Tagore, from “iv,” Poetry (December 1912)
In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors. ― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Composed between 1790 and 1793, in the period immediately after the French Revolution.
I dreamt that she sat by my head, tenderly ruffling my hair withher fingers, playing the melody of her touch. I looked at her faceand struggled with my tears, till the agony of unspoken words burstmy sleep like a bubble. I sat up and saw the glow of the Milky Way above my window,like a… Continue reading Rabindranath Tagore