Poets From The United States

"A mother's hardest to forgive. Life is the fruit she longs to hand you Ripe on a plate. And while you live, Relentlessly she understands you."

"I weep those dead lips, white and dry, On which no kisses lie, Those eyes deserted of desire, And love’s soft fire. I weep the folded feet and hands, Held fast in linen bands; Still heart, cold breasts—for them my dole: God hath the soul."

"The other day I chanced to meet An angry man upon the street— A man of wrath, a man of war, A man who truculently bore Over his shoulder, like a lance, A banner labeled "Tolerance.""

"Sin has always been an ugly word, but it has been made so in a new sense over the last half-century. It has been made not only ugly but passé. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick."

"The kitchen will not come into its own again until it ceases to be a status symbol and becomes again a workshop. It may be pastel. It may be ginghamed as to curtains and shining with copper like a picture in a woman's magazine. But you and I will know it chiefly by its fragrances and its clutter. At the back of the stove will sit a soup kettle, gently bubbling, one into which every day are popped leftover bones and vegetables to make stock for sauces or soup for the family. Carrots and leeks will sprawl on counters, greens in a basket. There will be something sweet-smelling twirling in a bowl and something savory baking in the oven. Cabinet doors will gape ajar and colored surfaces are likely to be littered with salt and pepper and flour and herbs and cheesecloth and pot holders and long-handled forks. It won't be neat. It won't even look efficient. but when you enter it you will feel the pulse of life throbbing from every corner. The heart of the home will have begun once again to beat."

"Nature never says anything to a child. To read its message one must look at it with eyes already old."

"Meek-eyed parents hasten down the ramps To greet their offspring, terrible from camps."

"Ah, snug lie those that slumber Beneath Conviction’s roof. Their floors are sturdy lumber, Their windows weatherproof. But I sleep cold forever, And cold sleep all my kind, For I was born to shiver In the draft from an open mind."

"Housewives more than any other race deserve well-furnished minds. They have to live in them such a lot of the time. ... We who belong to that profession hold the fate of the world in our hands."

"I’ll read as I please—a spot of science fiction, a taste of Jane Austen. Mark Twain and Keats and Agatha Christie shall sit cheek by jowl on my night table. And I’ll make it a point of honor to finish no book I’m not enjoying, also to skip as much and as often as I like. If I want to peek to see how a novel comes out, I’ll feel perfectly justified. I’ll go to Plato when I’m in the mood and the newest thriller when I’m not. For again, the little vices bring relaxation; and a bit of trash now and then is good for the severest reader. It provides that necessary roughage in the literary diet."

"Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same."

"Prince, I warn you, under the rose, Time is the thief you cannot banish. These are my daughters, I suppose. But where in the world did the children vanish?"

"Men may be allowed romanticism; women, who can create life in their own bodies, dare not indulge in it."

"God knows that a mother needs fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul."

"Always on Monday morning the Press reports God as revealed to His vicars in various guises— Benevolent, stormy, patient, or out of sorts. But only God knows which God God recognizes."

"Compromise? Of course we compromise. But compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages happy and Spruce Manor the pleasant place it is."

"Ah! some love Paris, And some, Purdue. But love is an archer with a low I.Q. A bold, bad bowman, and innocent of pity. So I'm in love with New York City."

"As we hold in derision now the discovery of the philosopher's stone and perpetual motion, so future generations will look upon this fetich of our time, and not without unspeakable amazement."

"Agriculture and commerce, as they once were, are things of the past. The one has been made unprofitable beyond description; the other is now impossible, except in a reduced way, under an alien flag."

"They will see a generation here and now that is trying to lift itself over the fence by standing in a corn-basket and pulling upward on the handles."

"Farms are a constant quantity and do not increase. It is only the wave of debt that increases over them."

"For the people to buy themselves out, would be the only honest way of transfer; but this would be like a man standing in a corn-basket and trying to lift himself by its handles over the fence."

"The only "protection" they ever were in need of is protection from dogs and tariff-mongers."

"Bring cypress, rosemary and rue For him who kept his rudder true; Who went at dawn to that high star Where Washington and Lincoln are!"

"Winged soul of beauty, tropic in desire, Thy love seems alien in our northern zone; Thou giv'st to our green lands a burst of fire And callest back the fables we disown. The hot equator thou mightst well inspire, Or stand above some Eastern monarch’s throne."

"The history of land-ownership ... is as strikingly a history of losses as it is of profits. We see the successes, as we see the ships which float on the ocean, while the unnumbered wrecks in both cases are out of thought and beyond vision."

"Don't we all, of long ago, By the ruddy fireplace glow, In the kitchen and the hall, Those queer, cooflike pranks recall? Eery shadows were they then— But to-night they come again; Were we once more but sixteen, Precious would be Halloween."

"A ball of fire shoots through the tamarack In scarlet splendor, on voluptuous wings; Delirious joy the pyrotechnist brings, Who marks for us high summer's almanac. How instantly the red-coat hurtles back!"

"If it is to have the fat meat in its pudding, on what principle can it free itself from responsibility for the lean?"

"Nothing was ever truer...than the statement, "The poor you have always with you.""

"Nor moves his pen our heedless nation now, Which, sworn to justice, stirred the people so. In some far world his much-loved face must glow With rapture still. This breeze once fanned his brow. This is the peaceful Mecca all men know!"

"Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite All are on their rounds to-night,— In the wan moon's silver ray Thrives their helter-skelter play."

"Wealth itself is an inequality which renders possible the most lurid contrast in conditions of human happiness. ... But you can not abolish wealth without punishing economy and thrift, and taking away the incentive to rise in the world. You can only abolish it by abolishing civilization, to which wealth and poverty are incidents; and poverty you can not abolish, either while civilization lasts or after it is destroyed."

"The effort to make things equal is a problem too great for any but angels and seraphs to deal with. No merely human device can touch it without breaking or deranging the mainspring of civilization."

"Sea-like in billowy distance, far away The half-broke prairies stretch on every hand; How wide the circuit of their summer day— What measureless acres of primeval land, Treeless and birdless, by no eyesight spanned!"

"Looking along the horizon's endless line, Man seems a pigmy in these realms of space; ... Here are soft grasses, flowers of tender hue, Palimpsests of the old and coming race."

"His cherished woods are mute. The stream glides down The hill as when I knew it years ago; The dark, pine arbor with its priestly gown Stands hushed, as if our grief it still would show."

"The man who burned up his barn filled with grain to destroy a hornets' nest is not alone in the world. He now has a cult and a body of disciples."

"O proud was our army that morning That stood where the pine darkly towers, When Sherman said "Boys, you are weary, This day fair Savannah is ours." Then sang we a song for our chieftain That echoed o'er river and lea, And the stars on our banner shone brighter When Sherman marched down to the sea."

"You may name a bronze statue Liberty, or a painted figure in a city hall Commerce, or a marble form in a temple Athene or Venus; but what is really there is only a representation of a single woman."

"I think that the sense that someone else cares always helps because it is the sense of love,—at least I think it is so with you."

"If you can’t have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live in."

"The sweetest roamer is a boy's young heart."

"Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure."

"When you write, you can hide behind your words. When you talk, you are up front, like the clown in the midway booth; any passer-by can bean you with a ball."

"Thank God for reflex decisions; they are the sine qua non of serenity. Suppose you had to decide afresh each day whether or not to brush your teeth?"

"All flowers are flirtatious—particularly if they carry hyphenated names. The more hyphens in the name, the flirtier the flower."

"Home from the lonely cities, time's wreck, and the naked woe, Home through the clean great waters where freemen's pennants blow, Home to the land men dream of, where all the nations go."

"Now the dark waters at the bow fold back, like earth against the plow; foam brightens like the dogwood now at home, in my own country."

"It is a bird-flight of the soul, when the heart declares itself in song. The affections that clothe themselves with wings are passions that have been subdued to virtues."