William Plomer

William Charles Franklyn Plomer (10 December 1903 – 21 September 1973) was a South African poet, novelist and campaigner for racial equality. He also wrote the librettos for four of Benjamin Britten’s operas. He wrote some of his poetry under the pseudonym Robert Pagan.

17 quotes found

"We hear a great deal about sex nowadays; it is possible to overestimate its importance, because there are always people who pay it little attention or who apparently manage, like Sir Isaac Newton, to get along, without giving it a thought."

- William Plomer

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"Who strolls so late, for mugs a bait, In the mists of Maida Vale, Sauntering past a stucco gate Fallen, but hardly frail?"

- William Plomer

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"The commonplace needs no defence, Dullness is in the critic’s eyes, Without a licence life evolves From some dim phase its own surprise;Under these yellow-twinkling elms, Behind these hedges trimly shorn, As in a stable once, so here It may be born, it may be born."

- William Plomer

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"It's so utterly out of the world! So fearfully wide of the mark! A Robinson Crusoe existence will pall On that unexplored side of the Park — Not a soul will be likely to call!"

- William Plomer

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"Out of that bungled, unwise war An alp of unforgiveness grew."

- William Plomer

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"On a sofa upholstered in panther skin Mona did researches in ."

- William Plomer

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"A family portrait not too stale to record Of a pleasant old buffer, nephew to a lord, Who believed that the bank was mightier than the sword, And that an umbrella might pacify barbarians abroad: Just like an old liberal Between the wars."

- William Plomer

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"Oh, the twenties and the thirties were not otherwise designed Than other times when blind men into ditches led the blind, When the rich mouse ate the cheese and the poor mouse got the rind, And man, the self-destroyer, was not lucid in his mind."

- William Plomer

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"With first-rate sherry flowing into second-rate whores, And third-rate conversation without one single pause: Just like a young couple Between the wars."

- William Plomer

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"A pleasant old duffer, nephew to a lord, Who believed that the bank was mightier than the sword, And that an umbrella might pacify barbarians abroad: Just like an old liberal Between the wars."

- William Plomer

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"When her guests were awash with champagne and with gin She was recklessly sober, as sharp as a pin: An abstemious man would reel at her look As she rolled a bright eye and praised his last book."

- William Plomer

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"A rose-red sissy half as old as time."

- William Plomer

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"'Look who's here! Do come and help us fiddle while Rome burns!'"

- William Plomer

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"So never say to D'Arcy, 'Be your age!' — He'd shrivel up at once or turn to stone."

- William Plomer

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"Brzeska and Brooke were among those she knew And she lived long enough to meet Lawrences, too, D. H. and T. E. – she who'd known R. L. S., Talked to Hardy of Kim, and to Kipling of Tess!"

- William Plomer

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"His most celebrated poems are, of course, the historical-satirical ballads (A or even X certificate) in which a person or period is "hit off", in the sense both of being preserved and hit for six."

- William Plomer

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"His poetry may be divided into comic extravaganza on the one hand, and more personal work on the other. There is no one like him in the world in the former genre; as a "light poet" he is preferable to John Betjeman – as fluent in traditional forms, his work is never vitiated by refuge in the poetical or high sentimental, and his choice of words is subtler, funnier and altogether sharper. In his other vein Plomer is fastidious, reticent, elegant and the author of some memorable and moving lines."