Allen Tate Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Now remember courage, go to the door,Open it and see whether coiled on the bedOr cringing by the wall, a savage beastMaybe with golden hair, with deep eyesLike a bearded spider on a sunlit floorWill snarl-and man can never be alone.

  Allen Tate

  Wall, Men, Hair

  Allen Tate, “The Wolves”

  4 Copy quote

• What was I saying? An Egyptian king
  Once touched long fingers, which are not anything.

  Allen Tate

  Kings, Twilight, Long

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.194, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.

  Allen Tate

  Art, Mean, Years

  allen tate (1953). “the man of letters in the modern world”

  7 Copy quote

• Swimmer of noonday, lean for the perfect dive
  To the dead Mother's face, whose subtile down
  You had not seen take amber light alive.

  Allen Tate

  Mother, Swimming, Light

  4 Copy quote

• We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.

  Allen Tate

  Particular, Knows

  allen tate (1953). “the man of letters in the modern world”

  4 Copy quote

• I thought I heard the dark pounding its head
  On a rock, crying: Who are the dead?

  Allen Tate

  Dark, Rocks, Cry

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.43, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Struck in the wet mire
  Four thousand leagues from the ninth buried city
  I thought of Troy, what we had built her for.

  Allen Tate

  Cities, League, Four

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.69, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• My darling boy whom I shall never know,
  My son, I love you in my deepest fears.

  Allen Tate

  Love You, Son, Boys

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.142, Macmillan

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• What is the flesh and blood compounded ofBut a few moments in the life of time?This prowling of the cells, litigious love,Wears the long claw of flesh-arguing crime.

  Allen Tate

  Blood, Cells, Long

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.49, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• The day's at end and there's nowhere to go,
  Draw to the fire, even this fire is dying;
  Get up and once again politely lying
  Invite the ladies toward the mistletoe.

  Allen Tate

  Christmas, Lying, Fire

  Allen Tate (1947). “Poems, 1920-1945: A Selection”

  15 Copy quote

• Therefore with idle hands and head I sit
  In late December before the fire's daze
  Punished by crimes of which I would be quit.

  Allen Tate

  Christmas, Hands, Fire

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.103, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• The dreary flies, lazy and casual,
  Stick to the ceiling, buzz along the wall.
  O heart, the spider shuffles from the mould
  Weaving, between the pinks and grapes, his pall.

  Allen Tate

  Wall, Heart, Lazy

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.35, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Good manners, Madam, are had these days not
  For your asking, nor mine, nor what-we-used-to-be's.
  The day is a loud grenade that bursts a smile
  Of serious weeds in a comic lily plot.

  Allen Tate

  Weed, Good Man, Plot

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.204, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.

  Allen Tate

  Detachment, Theory, Has Beens

  allen tate (1953). “the man of letters in the modern world”

  8 Copy quote

• There's precious little to say between day and dark,
  Perhaps a few words on the implacable will
  Of time sailing like a magic barque
  Or something as fine for the amenities.

  Allen Tate

  Twilight, Dark, Sailing

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.43, Macmillan

  5 Copy quote

• The innocent mansion of a panther's heart!

  Allen Tate

  Heart, Panthers, Innocence

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.17, Macmillan

  11 Copy quote

• POET
  If not in a place, where are the People weeping?
  LIBERAL
  They creep weeping in the face, not place.
  POET
  Is it something with which we may cope
  The weeping, the creeping, the peepee-ing, the peeping?

  Allen Tate

  People, May, Faces

  Allen Tate (1947). “Poems, 1920-1945: A Selection”

  6 Copy quote

• Death's long anabasis.

  Allen Tate

  Long

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.56, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Dark accurate plunger down the successive knell
  Of arch on arch, where ogives burst a red
  Reverberance of hail upon the dead
  Thunder like an exploding crucible!

  Allen Tate

  Dark, Crucible, Arches

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.19, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• The torrent of the reaching shade
  Broke shadow into all its parts,
  What then had been of shadow made
  Found exigence in fits and starts.

  Allen Tate

  Shadow, Shade, Fit

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.73, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• William Blake cursed the flesh for a clod,
  Yet of some of his sayings we Moderns have heard tell:
  'The nakedness of woman is the work of God',
  Or that title--The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

  Allen Tate

  Heaven, Flesh, Titles

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.192, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• The dusk runs down the lane driven like hail;
  Far off a precise whistle is escheat
  To the dark; and then the towering weak and pale.

  Allen Tate

  Running, Sunset, Dark

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.18, Macmillan

  21 Copy quote

• Row after row with strict impunity
  The headstones yield their names to the element,
  The wind whirrs without recollection.

  Allen Tate

  Wind, Names, Yield

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.20, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• All the sea-gods are dead.
  You, Venus, come home
  To your salt maidenhead.

  Allen Tate

  Home, Sea, Venus

  Allen Tate (1947). “Poems, 1920-1945: A Selection”

  4 Copy quote

• I am not ridiculing verbal mechanisms, dreams, or repressions as origins of poetry; all three of them and more besides may have a great deal to do with it.

  Allen Tate

  Dream, Three, May

  allen tate (1953). “the man of letters in the modern world”

  4 Copy quote

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