Poetry Quotes

Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water, sings the pebbles into perfection.

Oh my only friend, my best beloved, the gates are open in my house-do not pass by like a dream.

In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams build their nest with fragments dropped from day's caravan.

Leave out my name from the gift if it be a burden, but keep my song.

Days are coloured bubbles that float upon the surface of fathomless nights.

My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.

In the world's audience hall, the simple blade of grass sits on the same carpet with the sunbeams, and the stars of midnight.

The echo mocks her origin to prove she is the original.

A bird half wakened in the lunar noonSang halfway through its little inborn tune.

The tree the tempest with a crash of woodThrows down in front of us is not to barOur passage to our journey's end for good,But just to ask us who we think we are.

There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is the most important of all to reach the heart of the reader.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

Every poem is a momentary stay against the confusion of the world.

The mind-is not the heart. I may yet live, as I know others live, To wish in vain to let go with the mind- Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me That I need learn to let go with the heart.

Lord, I have loved Your sky,Be it said against or for me,Have loved it clear and high,Or low and stormy.

Tree at my window, window tree, My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

The heart can think of no devotion Greater than being shore to the ocean- Holding the curve of one position, Counting an endless repetition.