Vita Sackville-West

"Suppose Orlando turns out to be about Vita; and its all about you and the lusts of your flesh and the lure of your mind (heart you have none, who go gallivanting down the lanes with Campbell) — suppose there's the kind of shimmer of reality which sometimes attaches to my people, as the lustre on an oyster shell (and that recalls another Mary) suppose, I say, that Sibyl next October says "There's Virginia gone and written a book about Vita" … Shall you mind?"

"I saw within the wheelwright’s shed The big round cartwheels, blue and red; A plough with blunted share; A blue tin jug; a broken chair; And paint in trial patchwork square Slapping up against the wall; The lumber of the wheelwright’s trade, And tools on benches neatly laid, The brace, the adze, the awl;"

"The young men strained upon the crank To wring the last reluctant inch. They laughed together, fair and frank, And threw their loins across the winch."

"The greater cats with golden eyes Stare out between the bars. Deserts are there, and the different skies, And night with different stars. They prowl the aromatic hill, And mate as fiercely as they kill, To roam, to live, to drink their fill; But this beyond their wit know I: Man loves a little, and for long shall die."

"Their strength's eternal in their sight, They overtake the deer in flight, And in their arrogance they smite; But I am sage, if they are strong: Man's love is transient as his death is long."

"I came from nowhere, and shall be Strong, steadfast, swift, eternally: I am a lion, a stone, a tree, And as the Polar star in me Is fixed my constant heart on thee. Ah, may I stay forever blind With lions, tigers, leopards, and their kind."

"Leopards on the gable-ends, Leopards on the painted stair, Stiff the blazoned shield they bear, Or and gules, a bend of vair, Leopards on the gable-ends, Leopards everywhere."

"Often on the painted stair, As I passed abstractedly, Velvet footsteps, two and three, Padded gravely after me. — There was nothing, nothing there, Nothing there to see."

"While many a lovely ship below sailed by On unknown errand, kempt and leisurely; And after each, oh, after each, my heart Fled forth, as, watching from the Downs apart, I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wide That might befall their beauty and their pride…"

"I have been reading Grey Wethers—a magnificent book. The descriptions of the downs are as fine as any in the language. Such power! Such power! Not a pleasant book of course! But what English!"

"Her appearance was indeed remarkable — strange almost beyond the reach of adjectives … She resembled a puissant blend of both sexes — Lady Chatterley and her lover rolled into one."

"Instantly the usual exciting devices enter my mind: a biography beginning in the year 1500 & continuing to the present day, called Orlando: Vita; only with a change about from one sex to the other."

"Who could so watch, and not forget the rack Of wills worn thin and thought become too frail, Nor roll the centuries back — And feel the sinews of his soul grow hale, And know himself for Rome's inheritor?"

"If I had only loved your flesh And careless damned your soul to Hell, I might have laughed and loved afresh, And loved as lightly and as well, And little more to tell."

"It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this — But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it."

"It is quite true that you have had infinitely more influence on me intellectually than anyone, and for this alone I love you."

"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? for the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind; how the observation of last year seems childish, superficial; how this year — even this week — even with this new phrase — it seems to us that we have grown to a new maturity. It may be a fallacious persuasion, but at least it is stimulating, and so long as it persists, one does not stagnate. I look back as through a telescope, and see, in the little bright circle of the glass, moving flocks and ruined cities."

"She walks among the loveliness she made, Between the apple-blossom and the water— She walks among the patterned pied brocade, Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter."

"It was a real event in my life and my heart to be with you the other day. We do matter to each other, don't we? however much our ways may have diverged. I think we have got something indestructible between us, haven't we? … It has been a very strange relationship, ours; unhappy at times, happy at others; but unique in its way, and infinitely precious to me and (may I say?) to you. What I like about it is that we always come together again however long the gaps in our meetings may have been. Time seems to make no difference."

"I have come to the conclusion, after many years of sometimes sad experience, that you cannot come to any conclusion at all."

"And so it ends, We who were lovers may be friends. I have some weeks in which to steel My heart and teach myself to feel Only a sober tenderness Where once was passion's loveliness."

"You took me weak and unprepared. I had not thought that you who shared My days, my nights, my heart, my life, Would slash me with a naked knife And gently tell me not to bleed But to accept your crazy creed."

"Darling, I thought of nothing mean; I thought of killing straight and clean. You're safe; that's gone, that wild caprice, But tell me once before I cease, Which does your Church esteem the kinder role, To kill the body or destroy the soul?"

"Days I enjoy are days when nothing happens, When I have no engagements written on my block, When no one comes to disturb my inward peace, When no one comes to take me away from myself And turn me into a patchwork, a jig-saw puzzle, A broken mirror that once gave a whole reflection, Being so contrived that it takes too long a time To get myself back to myself when they have gone."

"And what have I to give my friends in the last resort? An awkwardness, a shyness, and a scrap, No thing that's truly me, a bootless waste, A waste of myself and them, for my life is mine And theirs presumably theirs, and cannot touch."

"Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild Even in indignation, taking by the hand One that obeyed them mutely, as a child Submissive to a law he does not understand."

"Remembrance clamoured in him: 'She was wild and free, Magnificent in giving; she was blind To gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me, — but me!"

"All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn, Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn Where she was wont to roam."

"All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed, The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand, And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last Is the voice of the lonely land."

"I sing the cycle of my country's year, I sing the tillage, and the reaping sing, Classic monotony, that modes and wars Leave undisturbed, unbettered, for their best Was born immediate, of expediency."

"Why should a poet pray thus? poets scorn The boundaried love of country, being free Of winds, and alien lands, and distances, Vagabonds of the compass, wayfarers, Pilgrims of thought, the tongues of Pentecost Their privilege, and in the peddler's pack The curious treasures of their stock-in-trade, Bossy and singular, the heritage Of poetry and science, polished bright, Thin with the rubbing of too many hands; Myth, glamour, hazard, fables dim as age, Faith, doubt, perplexity, grief, hope, despair, Wings, and great waters, and Promethean fire, Man's hand to clasp, and Helen's mouth to kiss. Why then in little meadows hedge about A poet's pasture? shed a poet's cloak For fustian? cede a birthright, thus to map So small a corner of so great a world?"

"The country habit has me by the heart, For he's bewitched for ever who has seen, Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun, As each man knows the life that fits him best, The shape it makes in his soul, the tune, the tone, And after ranging on a tentative flight Stoops like the merlin to the constant lure."

"Forget not bees in winter, though they sleep."

"In February, if the days be clear, The waking bee, still drowsy on the wing, Will sense the opening of another year And blunder out to seek another spring."

"All craftsmen share a knowledge. They have held Reality down fluttering to a bench."

"A man and his loves make a man and his life."

"A man and his tools make a man and his trade."

"A man and his land make a man and his creed."

"The dusk is heavy with the wine's warm load; Here the long sense of classic measure cures The spirit weary of its difficult pain; Here the old Bacchic piety endures, Here the sweet legends of the world remain."

"Women, like men, ought to have their years so glutted with freedom that they hate the very idea of freedom."

"Of course I have no right whatsoever to write down the truth about my life involving as it naturally does the lives of so many other people, but I do so urged by a necessity of truth-telling, because there is no living soul who knows the complete truth; here, may be one who knows a section; and there, one who knows another section: but to the whole picture not one is initiated."

"Nichts verschafft einem so schnell Achtung, wie wenn man seine Mitmenschen wissen lässt, man sei ihnen gewachsen."

"Junge Leute zwingen uns, vorwärts auf ein Leben voll Mühe und Anstrengung zu blicken. Alte Leute erlauben uns, rückwärts auf ein Leben zu schauen, dessen Mühen endgültig vorüber sind."

"die Menschen nehmen Dinge in der Bibel hin, die sie im gewöhnlichen Leben verabscheuen."

"Der Langlebige hat wenigstens über eines der Hindernisse triumphiert, die dem Menschen von Anfang an im Wege stehen: die Kürze des Lebens."

"Astronomische Wahrheiten mögen zwar der Phantasie einen großen Aufschwung geben, tragen aber zur Lösung dringender Probleme wenig bei."