Poets From The United States

"And let philosophers say what they please, You're not grown less by coming o'er the seas."

"The long-haired Yak has long black hair, He lets it grow — he doesn't care. He lets it grow and grow and grow, He lets it trail along the stair. Does he ever go to the barbershop? NO! How wild and woolly and devil-may-care A long-haired Yak with long black hair Would look when perched in a barber chair!"

"The lariat snaps; the cowboy rolls His pack, and mounts and rides away. Back to the land the cowboy goes."

"Huge and alert, irascible yet strong, We make our fitful way 'mid right and wrong. One time we pour out millions to be free, Then rashly sweep an empire from the sea! One time we strike the shackles from the slaves, And then, quiescent, we are ruled by knaves. Often we rudely break restraining bars, And confidently reach out toward the stars."

"This is the Land we love, our heritage, Strange mixture of the gross and fine, yet sage And full of promise,—destined to be great. Drink to Our Native Land! God Bless the State!"

"I lay there in the river for a minute and gave up. When you do that something dies inside."

"Here the Frenchman, Spaniard, and Englishman all passed, leaving each his legend; and a brilliant and more or less feudal civilization with its aristocracy and slaves has departed with the economic system upon which it rested."

"If there was anything "new and better" about America it was the hope of peace—of peace on a more secure, vaster, continental scale than had ever been tried or attempted before. Oceans to the east and west of her, arid wilderness to the south, and the self-same friendly people to the north—the nation could not be seriously threatened by anything but disturbance from within."

"This Appalachian country was not huge, barren, and monotonous like so much of the West. There was nothing here to suggest that perhaps one had always better be moving. On the contrary, there was a kind of overtone from the countryside that whispered, "Tarry, traveller, tarry. Here is comfort for the soul of man. Here are verdancy and peace.""

"A great longing for that happy, waltzing, music-box time came over him."

"He regarded all the country he was looking at as still a part of the United States, some of the inhabitants of which needed to be reconverted to the faith of their fathers—by apostolic blows and knocks if necessary."

"A victory for any side is a defeat for every side now."

"Yesterday, yesterday, yesterday—tapped the feet of the mare."

"It is only men of genuine philosophical sense who can understand that the form of government is the most important thing in the world."

"Religions change; beer and wine remain."

"Grow up as soon as you can. It pays. The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty, provided of course you are healthy and don’t die. No, the young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits."

"What is even a wise book but a blast from the lungs made visible to the eyes?"

"Practise...what I call a decent mammalian philosophy."

"It was good to be alive. Black Girl gathered herself under him and thundered down the Pike towards Lancaster. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—was the tune her hoofs now seemed to be drumming on the road away from yesterday."

"Christ Jesus, when I come to die Grant me a clean, sweet, summer sky, Without the mad wind's panther cry. Send me a little garden breeze To gossip in magnolia trees; For I have heard, these fifty years, Confessions muttered at my ears, Till every mumble of the wind Is like tired voices that have sinned."

"Mornings, the flower-women hawk their wares— Bronze caryatids of a genial race, Bearing the bloom-heaped baskets on their heads."

"Every new generation...is a fresh invasion of savages."

"Local color has a fatal tendency to remain local; but it is also true that the universal often borders on the void."

"Legends are material to be moulded, and not facts to be recorded."

"Between the villages of Aubière and Romagnat in the ancient Province of Auvergne there is an old road that comes suddenly over the top of a high hill. To stand south of this ridge looking up at the highway flowing over the skyline is to receive one of those irrefutable impressions from landscape which requires more than a philosopher to explain. In this case it is undoubtedly, for some reason, one of exalted expectation."

"Southward, two mighty ranges of the Appalachians shouldered their way into the blue distance like tremendous caravans marching across eternity."

"Though art be on vacation, The studio remains; The well of inspiration Is backing out of drains. Come, let us daub, my crazys, Surrealize the thrill Of soapsuds on the daisies And skylarks in the swill. Ours not to reason whether Surprise surpasseth wonder, When man hath joined together What God hath rent asunder."

"The monk says, "That's a joke on me, for that there dame to croak on me. I hadn't oughter passed her up the time I had the chance.""

"They put a hood upon his head And bound it with a thong. Then—England lost a ball of lead And Ireland lost a song."

"On the isle of Pago Pago, land of palm trees, rice and sago, Where the Chinaman and Dago dwell with natives dusky hued, Lived a dissolute and shady, bold adventuress named Sadie, Sadie Thompson was the lady, and the life she lived was lewd."

"Motherhood is never honored by excessive talk about the heroics of pregnancy."

"People who believe in little laugh at little."

"Let us veil the tragic sequel, for a pious man but weak will Find, alas, that he's unequal to a lady's potent charms. So his long suppressed libido, sharp as steel of famed Toledo, Spurning prayers and hymns and credo, found surcease in Sadie's arms."

"As good a pun as was ever spoken, to my memory, was made by a young English Jesuit now teaching at Wimbledon College. He met in a railway train a young man who said he was constructing a philosophy of his own. The young man declared that he set the foundation of his private philosophical system in the following epistemological principle: "I am, therefore I think!" "Oh," replied the young Jesuit, "isn't that putting Descartes before the horse?""

"It is hard to believe that he chops nearly as much wood as he pretends to, or that cows, hens, and barnyards are his chief loves. He has been known to enjoy the tea life of social England and is at present a professor of poetry in a college."

"If a man builds a better mousetrap than his neighbor, the world will not only beat a path to his door, it will make newsreels of him and his wife in beach pajamas, it will discuss his diet and his health, it will publish heart-throb stories of his love life, it will publicize him, analyze him, photograph him, and make his life thoroughly miserable by feeding to the palpitant public intimate details of things that are none of its damned business."

"The other day it was reported in the newspaper that a Maine hen had won a prize for having hatched nearly 200 pullets in the course of a single year. Now what ought the faithful youngster to remark on hearing that? He ought to remark that the hen deserved the Pulletser Prize."

"In Spain, where the courtly Castilian hidalgo twangs lightly each night his romantic guitar, Where the castanets clink on the gay piazetta, and strains of fandangoes are heard from afar, There lived, I am told, a bold hussy named Carmen, a pampered young vamp full of devil and guile. Cigarette and cigar men were smitten with Carmen; from near and from far men were caught with her smile."

"To ride, shoot straight and speak the truth— This was the ancient Law for Youth. Old times are past, old days are done; But the law runs true—O little son!"

"Who walks a road with love will never walk That road alone again. Old lonely things will garb them in the guise Of beauty glowing with remembered eyes."

"One lit a rushlight in the ages gone, Bearing it through the night with tireless hand, And saw its flicker steady into flame Spreading the Light, that men might understand. And when it faltered in his failing grasp Another took it up and bore it on. Today we serve in priesthood on the fire Clear and as constant as in years agone. Behind our service lies a century..."

"It would have been tragic if Leonard Feeney, the great apostle of salvation within the church, had died an excommunicate. ... There are certain texts from the Bible that I can never read without hearing, in my imagination, the voice and intonations of Leonard Feeney."

"Jack Spink was fond of drink, His wife preferred to eat; For eats is eats and wets is wets And never the twain shall meet."

"Do you know a good way to convince ladies who adore he-men that you are a he-man and not a sissy? Raise a challenging mustache, write a humorless book full of unabridged hells and damns and kindred phrases in the field of sex, and then come out blatantly in favor of the Loyalists' cause in Spain."

"But here's our friend José, who seizes her bridle. A wild homicidal glint gleams in his eye. He's mad and disgusted and cries out, "You've busted the heart that once trusted you. Wed me, or die!" Though Carmen is frightened at how this scene might end, I'm forced to admit she is game to the last. She says to him "Banish the notion and vanish! Vamos! which is Spanish for "run away fast." A scream and a struggle! She reels and she staggers, for Don José's dagger's plunged deep in her breast. No more will she flirt in her old way, that's certain. So ring down the curtain, poor Carmen's at rest."

"The only thing worse than him on the radio is all static."

"One time, in Alexandria, in wicked Alexandria, Where nights were wild with revelry and life was but a game, There lived, so the report is, an adventuress and courtesan, The pride of Alexandria, and Thais was her name."

"Then for the sake of Freedom’s name, (Since British wisdom scorns repealing) Come sacrifice to Patriot fame, And give up tea by way of healing."

"Eunice Allen see the Indians comeing And hoped to save herself by running And had not her petticoats stopt her The awful creatures had not cotched her Nor tommyhawked her on her head And left her on the ground for dead."

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