Month: December 2007

Opportunity’s favourite disguise is trouble.

The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid.

He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge

I wander by the edge Of this desolate lake
Where wind cries in the sedge:
Until the axle break
That keeps the stars in their round,
And hands hurl in the deep
The banners of East and West,
And the girdle of light is unhound,
Your breast will not lie by the breast
Of your beloved in sleep.

There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life’s point of no return.

Edible – good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

He who would do good to another must do it in the Minute Particular. General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite and flatterer.

Starlight

Three kings embark on a long journey
Under the dry acres of the moon
Whose light is well disposed,
But of no special significance
It is the nailhead light
Of one sparky planet
That draws them on –
Although at times,
One king thinks the star
Has the look of crayon
Drawn on dark paper;
While another thinks it
Looks no more than a sliver
Of silver pasted on indigo;
And the third king, observing
A certain unsteadiness,
Thinks the heavenly guide
Trembles on its cotton thread

Give me a man who sings at his work.

Life is the sum of your choices.

The universe is made of stories, not atoms.

BC : AD

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future’s
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.
This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.
This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.
And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.

It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character.

I don’t like to cross dead people out of my address book. I put them in square brackets.

Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned;
Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes.

A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be oversophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk’s leap toward immortality.

A Good Poem

A good poem is like finding a hole
in the palace
wall–
never know what you
might
see.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.

Happy the people whose annals are blank in the history books!

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit

a telegram to his wife

Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?

Simply Assisting God

I am a humble artist
moulding my earthly clod,
adding my labour to nature’s,
simply assisting God.

Not that my effort is needed;
yet somehow, I understand,
my maker has willed it that I too should have
unmoulded clay in my hand.

If a better system is thine, impart it; if not, make use of mine.

Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.