I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

We love the things we love for what they are.

Some people go to priests, others to poetry, I to my friends.

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

Days of absence, sad and dreary, Clothed in sorrow’s dark array, – Days of absence, I am weary; She I love is far away.

I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love.

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.

You rose into my life like a promised sunrise, brightening my days with the light in your eyes. I've never been so strong. Now I'm where I belong.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Unbeing dead isn't being alive.

Maidens like moths are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.

Some good, some so-so and lots plain bad: that's how a book of poems is made, my friend

Pound's crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don't put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows and of lending existence to nothing.

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk at least before they dance.

Teach you children poetry, it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.

Oh! too convincing - dangerously dear - In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.

Then stirs the feeling infinite so felt, In solitude where we are least alone.

Let none think to fly the danger, for soon or late love is his own avenger.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Lift up your eyes upon. This day breaking for you. Give birth again. To the dream.

Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.

I'll publish right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

To fly from need not be to hate mankind: All are not fit with them to stir and toil, Nor is it discontent to keep the mind, Deep in its fountain.

I give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball, It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, Built in Jerusalem's wall.

I heard an Angel singing, When the day was springing, "Mercy, Pity, Peace, Is the world's release."

He who binds to himself a joy, Does the winged life destroy, But he who kisses the joy as it flies, Lives in eternity's sunrise.

The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things and far below the musician in that of invisible things.

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me I know that is poetry.

Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close, Something attempted, something done has earned a night's repose.

And I made a rural pen, And I stained the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs, Every child may joy to hear.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

For pleasures past I do not grieve nor perils gathering near, My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear.

Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler, and daughters sometimes run off with the butler.

Invention flags, his brain goes muddy, and black despair succeeds brown study.

Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend, and every foe.

Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is but always to be blest.

Seek Love in the pity of others' woe, In the gentle relief of another's care, In the darkness of night and the winter's snow, In the naked and outcast seek Love there!

If I were hanged on the highest hill, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! I know whose love would follow me still, Mother o' mine O mother o' mine!

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

In solitude where we are least alone.

The memory of joy is no longer joy, the memory of pain is pain still.

But he with first a start and then a wink, Said 'There's another star gone out I think!'

When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

But are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false?

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

For the Eye altering alters all, The Senses roll themselves in fear, And the flat Earth becomes a Ball.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked, a song that's spoke. I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

A hungry wolf at all the herd will run, In hopes through many to make sure of one.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history, for poetry expresses the universal and history only the particular.

Of all the horrid hideous notes of woe, Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, Is that portentous phrase 'I told you so'.

The poor dog, in life the firmest friend, the first to welcome, foremost to defend.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.

The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. The lust of the goat is the bounty of God. The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God. The nakedness of woman is the work of God.

There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away, nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.

She likes herself, yet others hates, For that which in herself she prizes, And while she laughs at them forgets, She is the thing that she despises.

Nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me: I am cruelly used, nobody feels for my poor nerves.

I try to live what I consider a "poetic existence." That means I take responsibility for the air I breathe and the space I take up. I try to be immediate to be totally present for all my work.

I have mental joys and mental health, Mental friends and mental wealth, I've a wife that I love and that loves me, I've all but riches bodily.

Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.

The Angel that presided o'er my birth / Said Little creature formed of joy and mirth / Go love without the help of anything on earth.'

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land, or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

To a poet silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.

If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye.

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion, it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But of course only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

All Heaven and Earth are still, though not in sleep, But breathless as we grow when feeling most.

When I was writing pretty poor poetry this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.

All human history attests, That happiness for man - the hungry sinner! Since Eve ate apples much depends on dinner.

Whenever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography history or science it is killed. The living images become only remote facts of a distant time or place. Furthermore it is never difficult to demonstrate that as science and history mythology is absurd.

Every age has its own poetry, in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.

My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt, helpless naked piping loud, like a fiend hid in a cloud.

I, by no means, rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence - this may look like affectation, but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.

Poetry should help not only to refine the language of the time but to prevent it from changing too rapidly.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

'Tis easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows along like a song, But the man worth while is the one who will smile, when everything goes dead wrong.

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

The dogs did bark, the children screamed, Up flew the windows all; And every soul bawled out, Well done! As loud as he could bawl.

With only half a lip you kiss, And half of that I ne'er' should miss, A greater boon of worth untold, Wilt grant me? That whole half withhold.

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.

With me poetry has not been a purpose but a passion.

All I saw farther in the last confusion, Was that King George slipped into heaven for one, And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, I left him practising the hundredth psalm.

Poetry has done enough when it charms but prose must also convince.

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell is because he was a true poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

You may send poetry to the rich, to poor men give substantial presents

Clime of the unforgotten brave! Whose land from plain to mountain-cave, Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long, and the age of the great epics is past.

When power leads man toward arrogance poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts poetry cleanses.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

Why should poetry have to make sense?

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

I have met with most poetry on trunks, so that I am pat to consider the trunk-maker as the sexton of authorship.

Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.

We make out of the quarrel with others rhetoric but of the quarrel with ourselves poetry.

It is written on the arched sky, it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature, it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.

Painting is silent poetry and poetry is painting that speaks.

She walks in beauty like the night, Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright, Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

It's not easy to define poetry.

Love is the poetry of the senses.

The beauty the poetry of the fear in their eyes. I didn't mind going to jail for what five six hours? It was absolutely worth it.

The business of the poet is not to find new emotions but to use the ordinary ones and in working them up into poetry to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all.

For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.

Everything one invents is true you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

Hear the voice of the Bard! Who present past and future sees, Whose ears have heard The Holy Word, That walked among the ancient trees.

`Father O father! what do we here, In this land of unbelief and fear? The Land of Dreams is better far, Above the light of the morning star.

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.

Poetry is something to make us wiser and better by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth which God has set in all men's souls.

Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry cannot have much respect for himself or for anything else.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.

O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover, The thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

When it comes to atoms language can be used only as in poetry. The poet too is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.

Humility is only doubt, And does the sun and moon blot out.

I don't think I've ever read poetry ever.

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.

Yet it is true poetry is delicious, the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

I tell thee be not rash, a golden bridge Is for a flying enemy.

I'm sorry man but I've got magic. I've got poetry in my fingertips. Most of the time - and this includes naps - I'm an F-18 bro. And I will destroy you in the air. I will deploy my ordinance to the ground.

But Shakespeare also says 'tis very silly / `To gild refined gold or paint the lily'.

O solitude where are the charms, That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place.

Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.

Listen real poetry doesn't say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.

Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history since its statements are of nature of universals, whereas those of history are of singulars.

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive a thing which enters into one's soul and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject.

The sort of poetry I seek resides in objects man can't touch.

The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one!

Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.

Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being to which we rarely penetrate, for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.

The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ, it contains both of them in a state of high development and epitomizes both.

Poetry is more philosophical and of higher value than history.

Though they did not kiss, Yet still between his Darkness and his Brightness, There passed a mutual glance of great politeness.

Rhyme that enslaved queen that supreme charm of our poetry that creator of our meter.

Alone all alone, Nobody but nobody, Can make it out here alone.

Pure mathematics is in its way the poetry of logical ideas.

And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

Poetry consists in a rhyming dictionary and things seen.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.

Poetry should only occupy the idle.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

There is another old poet, whose name I do not now remember, who said "Truth is the daughter of Time."

The Bible should be taught but emphatically not as reality. It is fiction myth poetry anything but reality. As such it needs to be taught because it underlies so much of our literature and our culture.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off I know that is poetry.

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere but putting it on paper is alas not so easy as looking at it.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter and the crush of worlds.

All one's inventions are true you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

Nobody I think ought to read poetry or look at pictures or statues who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.

Build today then strong and sure, With a firm and ample base, And ascending and secure. Shall tomorrow find its place.

I think that there is nothing not even crime more opposed to poetry to philosophy ay to life itself than this incessant business.

Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

In the television age the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

If my poetry aims to achieve anything it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

The crown of literature is poetry.

As things are and as fundamentally they must always be poetry is not a career but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

My favourite poem is the one that starts 'Thirty days hath September' because it actually tells you something.

Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire!

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry prophecy and religion all in one.

Poetry fettered fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry painting and music are destroyed or flourish.

Adieu adieu! my native shore, Fades o'er the waters blue.

Wine is bottled poetry.

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

The true spirit of delight the exaltation the sense of being more than Man which is the touchstone of the highest excellence is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.

All slang is metaphor and all metaphor is poetry.

I would define in brief the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!

Wandering in many a coral grove / Fair Nine forsaking Poetry!

Come away O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

To see clearly is poetry prophecy and religion all in one.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry but a kind of instinct or inspiration such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.

When at last we are sure, You've been properly pilled, Then a few paper forms, Must be properly filled. So that you and your heirs, May be properly billed.

Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.

Man being reasonable must get drunk, The best of life is but intoxication, Glory the grape, love gold - in these are sunk - The hopes of all men and of every nation.