#poe

THOU wast all that to me, love, For which my soul did pine: A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, "On! on!"—but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast. For, alas! alas! with me The light of Life is o'er! No more—no more—no more— (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar. And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy gray eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams— In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams. ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#dreams

Man would not be man if his dreams did not exceed his grasp. ... Like John Donne, man lies in a close prison, yet it is dear to him. Like Donne's, his thoughts at times overleap the sun and pace beyond the body. If I term humanity a slime mold organism it is because our present environment suggest it. If I remember the sunflower forest it is because from its hidden reaches man arose. The green world is his sacred center. In moments of sanity he must still seek refuge there. ... If I dream by contrast of the eventual drift of the star voyagers through the dilated time of the universe, it is because I have seen thistledown off to new worlds and am at heart a voyager who, in this modern time, still yearns for the lost country of his birth. ↗

— Loren Eiseley

#human #poetry #dreams

The Wolf trots to and fro, The world lies deep in snow, The raven from the birch tree flies, But nowhere a hare, nowhere a roe, The roe -she is so dear, so sweet - If such a thing I might surprise In my embrace, my teeth would meet, What else is there beneath the skies? The lovely creature I would so treasure, And feast myself deep on her tender thigh, I would drink of her red blood full measure, Then howl till the night went by. Even a hare I would not despise; Sweet enough its warm flesh in the night. Is everything to be denied That could make life a little bright? The hair on my brush is getting grey. The sight is failing from my eyes. Years ago my dear mate died. And now I trot and dream of a roe. I trot and dream of a hare. I hear the wind of midnight howl. I cool with the snow my burning jowl, And on to the devil my wretched soul I bear. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#steppenwolf #dreams

The paintings may communicate even better because people are lazy and they can look at a painting with less effort than they can read a poem. ↗

— Lawrence Ferlinghetti

#better #communicate #effort #even #lazy

I’ve seen daggers pierce the chest, Children dying in the road, Crawling things hooked and baited, Rapists bound and then castrated, Villains singed in public square. Yet none these sights did make me cringe Like when my Love cut all her hair. ↗

— Roman Payne

#fashion #funny-quotes #girls #hair #hair-drama

Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart. ↗

— Pablo Casals

#divine #heart #music #poetic #tell

Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever he performs above the heads of his audience, the poet, like an acrobat, climbs on rhyme to a high wire of his own making. ↗

— Lawrence Ferlinghetti

#absurdity #audience #climbs #constantly #death

We have to raise the consciousness; the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace. ↗

— Lawrence Ferlinghetti

#change the world #consciousness #general #only #poets

By reason of weird translation, many such sets of instructions read like poems anyhow. ↗

— Brian Ferneyhough

#instructions #like #many #poems #read

It is still true that it is easier to compose a poem in the form of a manual for adjusting a VCR than it is to write a piece using just tuning as a symphony. ↗

— Brian Ferneyhough

#compose #easier #form #just #manual