Poets From England

"Truth can thus only percolate in the form of hearsay."

"On political matters basically the best, though not infallible, source is rumour at a high political or police level."

"'If you're very tall it's not just rude boys who feel entitled to pass remarks. Perfect strangers in pubs are always coming up and saying, "Me and my friends are just having a bet. Just how tall are you?" Women to whom one has just been introduced think that it breaks the ice if they scream, "Goodness, you're tall!' How would they like it if I broke the ice first, by screaming, "Goodness, what thick ankles!" or "Goodness what a bust!"

"And now from the window of a four-wheeled cab the Queen of Babylon beheld the wonders of London. Buckingham Palace she thought uninteresting; Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament little better. But she liked the Tower, and the River, and the ships filled her with wonder and delight. ‘But how badly you keep your slaves. How wretched and poor and neglected they seem,’ she said, as the cab rattled along the Mile End Road. ‘They aren’t slaves; they’re working-people,’ said Jane. ‘Of course they’re working. That’s what slaves are. Don’t you tell me. Do you suppose I don’t know a slave’s face when I see it? Why don’t their masters see that they’re better fed and better clothed? Tell me in three words.’ No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little difficult to explain in three words even if you understand it—which the children didn’t. ‘You’ll have a revolt of your slaves if you’re not careful,’ said the Queen. ‘Oh, no,’ said Cyril; ‘you see they have votes—that makes them safe not to revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me so.’ ‘What is this vote?’ asked the Queen. ‘Is it a charm? What do they do with it?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said the harassed Cyril; ‘it’s just a vote, that’s all! They don’t do anything particular with it.’ ‘I see,’ said the Queen; ‘a sort of plaything.'"

"I do not know how far Nesbit consciously intended The Magic City to be an allegory of the human condition. It was only after I descended from the trees, and tasted the joys and sorrows of becoming a scientist, that I began to meditate upon the magic city and to see in it a mirror image of the big world that I was entering. I was plunged into the big world abruptly, like Philip. The big world, wherever I looked, was full of human tragedy. I came upon the scene and found myself playing roles that were half serious and half preposterous. And that is the way it has continued ever since."

":* The veteran BBC journalist John Simpson used "A Mad World, My Masters" as the title for memoirs published in 1999/2000."

":** The play A Mad World, My Masters by Thomas Middleton, published in 1608, is recorded as being performed in 1605."

"'Tis a mad world (my masters) and in sadnes / I travail'd madly in these dayes of madnes."

": Wanderings to See the Wonders of the West, 1649; reported in Esther Moir, The Discovery of Britain: The English Tourists 1540-1840, page 26."

":* The syntax of "a mad world (my masters)" may indicate allusion to and/or acknowledgement of Nicholas Breton's 1603 tract "A Mad World, my Masters"."

"In paper, many a poet now survives"

"Lewd did I live & evil I did dwel (Lewd did I live, evil I did dwel)"

"God sends meat, and the Devil sends cooks."

": Works, vol. ii, p. 85 (1630). Compare the 1735 Poor Richard's Almanack."

"This much poison cannot pour in one’s ears without it will leave some trace."

"The antithesis of myself. No fervor in him, no greed for life, only his ruthless craving to possess, which took no pleasure in possession."

"At that, I understood for sure I must not lose her, for the earth is not the earth without some light to see it by, and she was mine."

"The countryside meant grain and herds, and a river meant fish. And if the sky meant anything, it meant a cruel God who took no notice of their pains and chastised them if they sinned."

"Lir chiseled at the stone. It would take a month to make a perceptible impression on it. He had a few hours. Work harder, then."

"“What’s Hell?” inquired Wild-Eye. “You should visit before you pass judgement on a place. And have you never heard it said, the Dark One is a gentleman?”"

"Resist. Come, you’re tough enough, my lady, aren’t you, if you beg for death rather than inflict evil?"

"Of the rest, nothing further is said, save that lovers love and live and, in due season, as all men must, they also die. And so with Ezail and Chavir who had been Sovaz and Oloru, Azhriaz and Chuz. For such was and is mortal life, mortal death. But for love, who can predict or measure, plot, ascribe, or declare an end. Love is one of the immortals."

"The gods’ inventions are notorious by their errors."

"He took her virginity with the gentle care of love, and with love’s glorious violence."

"Nothing can be learned without some measure of risk, and, more vital still, of patience."

"His creed, both cosmic and precise, had a flexible simplicity which, usually, was soon harnessed and complicated by his devotees, or those who had picked up some smattering."

"“We are taught that the gods do not care for us,” said Pereban the priest. “Therefore we must seek for guidance in our own selves.”"

"“In the land of my childhood there was a saying, as follows: ‘The black rose does not anywhere grow. Therefore let us fondly believe in the blooming of the black rose.’”… “Where I shall feast presently,”said Azhrarn, “black roses are woven in the garlands. Enlighten them therefore in your childhood’s land: The black rose blooms. No longer believe in the black rose.”… “Zhoreb—what shall we do?” “There is nothing to be done. Demons exist.” And then Zhoreb smiled and added under his breath, “Therefore we need not believe in them.”"

"And in the manner of this ideal we strive, though even that not too onerously. For piety itself may be used to make a chain about the soul."

"To be static was never wise. Cobwebs clung to walls which stood. Men must journey, for in motion lay the seed, or at least the symbol of progress."

"If she had supposed the gods ever listened, she would have prayed."

"She had no reason not to believe in the impossible. Desperation was always ready to pray for miracles."

"Naturally, the little wars were dressed up in ritual and significance. War spear challenge was followed by war dance, and invocation of demons, the one-eyed snake and diverse totems. I bowed to none of these, having seen early the vulgarity and impotence of the tribal pantheon. Generally men create gods in their own image."

"Now I saw braves hang themselves with amulets, leave tidbits for spirits, and still take an arrow in the neck. I, worshiping nothing and bribing nothing with prayers, rode among an enemy unscathed, scything them like summer wheat."

"But in the mental overcast of that town, such things went rigidly unremarked, save through their irrelevance. For life was only a series of pitfalls, not to be enjoyed or celebrated. The gods chastised pleasure just as they ignored suffering."

"The sky powdered her cheeks with rouge, and the forest was mantled in crimson. Then the face of the sky altered, became that of a beautiful black damsel having no wish for rouge, but only for a net of stars and a piece of silver moon to hang on her forehead. And the forest mantled in sable, whispered with waters and the lyres of the grasshopper, and with the turning pages of leaves, and the unheard footsteps of unseen things."

"A few old men began to say there had been a winter like this when they were warriors, and that it was a year of catastrophe and disappointment. But old men will ever spin this wheel. The summers were always hotter and the winters colder in the days of their strength, and the air thick with epic drama and portent."

"The demons had invented love. There needs to be said no more."

"Finding in himself a profound strain of yearning, Pereban had mistaken it for religion. He entered the temple and dedicated himself to the worship of the goddess. Thereafter her statue—a roughhewn lump of rock with painted blobs for eyes and black wool for hair—so disappointed him that he kneeled to it, and beat himself regularly, every morning."

"In the tales of many lands, the prophet goes forth into the wilderness, the waste of sand or snow, or aloft on the barren black mountain, and when he returns to the people his eyes are great and luminous, his face is altered; he tells them he has seen God. I will suppose that God, if He is anywhere, is to be found in men, the nugget of gold buried inside the mud. I will suppose, too, that the wilderness washes off for a moment, or forever, the mud and the clay. Perhaps, then, the returning prophet should not say, “I have seen God”; but rather, “I have seen myself.”"

"This was the custom of the tribes, and perhaps, in the fogs of their pasts, the scheme had had its reasons. Yet like many of their ways, only the peel remained, the fruit was long gone."

"“Your beauty leaves me breathless,” said Pereban. “Yet you find the breath to say so.”"

"The bird stabs the worm, the big cat breaks the bird’s neck, the man casts his spear into the heart of the cat. That is how the world is. Even the man had better look behind him; the wolf may be near, or another man, or fate, the hungriest hunter of them all."

"There are two clever tricks men know. One is to make much of nothing. The second is to make nothing of much."

"“May the gods take note,” said he, “that it is my kind heart brought me to this predicament.” The gods, of course, did no such thing."

"I will suppose that all humankind have souls, a condition which, when sober, I do not hold."

"In the partial silence, the ocean asserted itself, waves hurled loudly against rock, slithering back with smashed spines, then, healed by immersion, hurled forward again."

"The moon walks east of midnight, The sun walks west of noon. And though I love you, sweetheart, I will not sing your tune."

"Rewa was brave. At least, she was thick-witted enough to be able to ignore personal danger to a great extent."

"“I rule none of it,” called Atmeh to heaven. “Listen to me, you peerless soulless gods, I rule nothing and no one, and soon, soon I will outshine you, for I will be a mortal. And one day, as you never can, I and mine shall inherit the earth.”"