Robert Graves

"To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession."

"I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horror of sordid passion and — if he is lucky enough — know the love of an honest woman."

"Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science."

"The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good — in spite of all the people who say he is very good."

"A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end."

"Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he has a strong personal rhythm to vary his metrics, he is nothing. Poets mistrust philosophy. They know that once the heads are counted, each owner of a head loses his personal identity and becomes a number in some government scheme: if not as a slave or serf, at least as a party to the device of majority voting, which smothers personal views."

"Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence. Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves. Of never acquiescing in a fraud; of never accepting the secondary-rate in poetry, painting, music, love, friends. Of safeguarding our poetic institutions against the encroachments of mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality."

"Even nowadays an archaic sense of love-innocence recurs, however briefly, among most young men and women. Some few of these, who become poets, remain in love for the rest of their lives, watching the world with a detachment unknown to lawyers, politicians, financiers, and all other ministers of that blind and irresponsible successor to matriarchy and patriarchy — the mechanarchy."

"If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of a man who desrves them."

"Trench stinks of shallow buried dead Where Tom stands at the periscope, Tired out. After nine months he’s shed All fear, all faith, all hate, all hope."

"Christ of His gentleness Thirsting and hungering, Walked in the wilderness; Soft words of grace He spoke Unto lost desert-folk That listened wondering."

"His eyes are quickened so with grief, He can watch a grass or leaf Every instant grow; he can Clearly through a flint wall see, Or watch the startled spirit flee From the throat of a dead man."

"There’s a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility."

"As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever."

"Be warm, enjoy the season, lift your head, Exquisite in the pulse of tainted blood, That shivering glory not to be despised. Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark — a shining space With the grave’s narrowness, though not its peace."

"Children, if you dare to think Of the greatness, rareness, muchness, Fewness of this precious only Endless world in which you say You live, you think of things like this: Blocks of slate enclosing dappled Red and green, enclosing tawny Yellow nets, enclosing white And black acres of dominoes, Where a neat brown paper parcel Tempts you to untie the string."

"Down, wanton, down! Have you no shame That at the whisper of Love’s name, Or Beauty’s, presto! up you raise Your angry head and stand at gaze?"

"To the much-tossed Ulysses, never done With woman whether gowned as wife or whore, Penelope and Circe seemed as one: She like a whore made his lewd fancies run, And wifely she a hero to him bore."

"They multiplied into the Sirens' throng, Forewarned by fear of whom he stood bound fast Hand and foot helpless to the vessel's mast, Yet would not stop his ears: daring their song He groaned and sweated till that shore was past."

"One, two and many: flesh had made him blind, Flesh had one pleasure only in the act, Flesh set one purpose only in the mind — Triumph of flesh and afterwards to find Still those same terrors wherewith flesh was racked."

"His wiles were witty and his fame far known, Every king's daughter sought him for her own, Yet he was nothing to be won or lost. All lands to him were Ithaca: love-tossed He loathed the fraud, yet would not bed alone."

"Sigh then, or frown, but leave (as in despair) Motive and end and moral in the air; Nice contradiction between fact and fact Will make the whole read human and exact."

"Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes."

"What, then, was war? No mere discord of flags But an infection of the common sky That sagged ominously upon the earth."

"War was return of earth to ugly earth, War was foundering of sublimities, Extinction of each happy art and faith By which the world had still kept head in air."

"Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon."

"There is one story and one story only That will prove worth your telling, Whether as learned bard or gifted child; To it all lines or lesser guards belong That startle with their shining Such common stories as they stray into."

"Water to water, ark again to ark, From woman back to woman: So each new victim treads unfalteringly The never altered circuit of his fate, Bringing twelve peers as witness Both to this starry rise and starry fall."

"She in left hand bears a leafy quince; When with her right she crooks a finger, smiling, How may the King hold back? Royally then he barters life for love."

"Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup: Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward. The log groans and confesses There is one story and one story only."

"Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling, Do not forget what flowers The great boar trampled down in ivy time. Her brow was creamy as the crested wave, Her sea-blue eyes were wild But nothing promised that is not performed."

"All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean — In scorn of which we sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom we desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo."

"But we are gifted, even in November, Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall."

"Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason."

"Take courage, lover! Could you endure such pain At any hand but hers?"

"The holiest, cruellest pains I feel, Die stillborn, because old men squeal For something new: "Write something new: We've read this poem — that one too, And twelve more like 'em yesterday"?"

"It doesn't matter what's the cause, What wrong they say we're righting, A curse for treaties, bonds and laws, When we're to do the fighting!"

"Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray, And so decide who started This bloody war, and who's to pay, But he must be stout-hearted, Must sit and stake with quiet breath, Playing at cards with Death. Don't plume yourself he fights for you; It is no courage, love, or hate, But let us do the things we do; It's pride that makes the heart be great; It is not anger, no, nor fear — Lucasta he's a Fusilier, And his pride keeps him here."

"The child alone a poet is: Spring and Fairyland are his. Truth and Reason show but dim, And all's poetry with him."

"Wisdom made him old and wary Banishing the Lords of Faery. Wisdom made a breach and battered Babylon to bits: she scattered To the hedges and ditches All our nursery gnomes and witches."

"Robin, and Red Riding Hood Take together to the wood, And Sir Galahad lies hid In a cave with Captain Kidd. None of all the magic hosts, None remain but a few ghosts Of timorous heart, to linger on Weeping for lost Babylon."

"When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much."

"Poet, never chase the dream. Laugh yourself and turn away. Mask your hunger, let it seem Small matter if he come or stay; But when he nestles in your hand at last, Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast."

"Through the window I can see Rooks above the cherry-tree, Sparrows in the violet bed, Bramble-bush and bumble-bee, And old red bracken smoulders still Among boulders on the hill, Far too bright to seem quite dead. But old Death, who can't forget, Waits his time and watches yet, Waits and watches by the door."

"When I'm killed, don't think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there's one thing that I know well, I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell!"

"So when I'm killed, don't wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You'll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you've read."

"Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart's desire..."

"Every fairy child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild — I'd love to be a Fairy's child."

"Another War soon gets begun, A dirtier, a more glorious one; Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in; It's the cruellest team will win. So hold your nose against the stink And never stop too long to think. Wars don't change except in name; The next one must go just the same, And new foul tricks unguessed before Will win and justify this War."

"The dead may speak the truth only, even when it discredits themselves."