Stephen Spender Quotes - Page 2

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Children Eyes Memories Poetry Writing

In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic, They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time , like the blank clock. No, I shall weave no tracery of pen-ornament To make them birds upon my singing tree: Time merely drives these lives which do not live As tides push rotten stuff along the shore.

Stephen Spender

Eye, Bird, Tree

Stephen Spender (2015). “New Collected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.50, Faber & Faber

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There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife.

Stephen Spender

Justice, Criticism, Certain

Stephen Spender's lecture at Brooklyn College, as quoted in "The New York Times", November 20, 1984.

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If Rilke cut himself shaving, he would bleed poetry.

Stephen Spender

Cutting, Poetry, Shaving

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Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields, See how these names are fêted in the waving grass And by the streamers of the white cloud And whispers of the wind in the listening sky. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

Stephen Spender

Heart, Air, Wind

'I think continually of those who were truly great' (1933)

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No one Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally. Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man.

Stephen Spender

Men, Goal, Hunger

Stephen Spender (1947). “Selected Poems”

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What is precious is never to forget, The delight of the blood drawn from ancient springs, Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth; Never to deny its pleasure in the simple morning light, Nor its grave evening demand for love; Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother, With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Stephen Spender

Morning, Spring, Simple

"Poems (I Think of Those Who Were Truly Great)". Book by Stephen Spender, 1933.

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Death to the killers, bringing light to life.

Stephen Spender

Light, Killers

Stephen Spender (2015). “Selected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.33, Faber & Faber

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I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.

Stephen Spender

Struggle, Writing, Confusion

"Journals 1939-1983". Book by Stephen Spender, 1986.

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Never being, but always at the edge of Being.

Stephen Spender

Edges

Title of poem (1933)

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An English poet writes, I think, just for people who are interested in poetry. An American poet writes, and feels that everyone ought to appreciate this. Then he has a deep sense of grievance . . .

Stephen Spender

Writing, Thinking, People

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Cult: simply an extension of the idea that everyone's supreme aim in life is self- fulfillment and happiness and that one is entitled to wreck marriage, children and certainly one's health and sanity in pursuit of this.

Stephen Spender

Children, Self, Ideas

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The only true hope for civilization-the conviction of the individual that his inner life can affect outward events and that, whether or not he does so he is responsible for them.

Stephen Spender

Civilization, Events, Doe

Stephen Spender (1966). “World Within World: The Autobiography of Stephen Spender”, p.285, Univ of California Press

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I think continually of those who were truly great...Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, and left the vivid air signed with their honor.

Stephen Spender

Thinking, Air, Honor

Stephen Spender, “The Truly Great”

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The ultimate aim of politics is not politics, but the activities which can be practised within the political framework of the State. Therefore an effective statement of these activities - e.g. science, art, religion - is in itself a declaration of ultimate aims around which the political means will crystallise... a society with no values outside of politics is a machine carrying its human cargo, with no purpose in its institutions reflecting their care, eternal aspirations, loneliness, need for love.

Stephen Spender

Art, Loneliness, Mean

"Life and the Poet". Book by Stephen Spender, 1942.

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Of course, the entire effort is to put myself Outside the ordinary range Of what are called statistics. A hundred are killed In the outer suburbs. Well, well, I carry on.

Stephen Spender

Effort, Ordinary, Statistics

Stephen Spender (2015). “New Collected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.151, Faber & Faber

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Under the olive trees, from the ground Grows this flower, which is a wound. It is easier to ignore Than the heroes' sunset fire Of death plunged in their willed desire Raging with flags on the world's shore.

Stephen Spender

Flower, Hero, Sunset

Stephen Spender (2015). “Selected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.54, Faber & Faber

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The seen and seeing softly mutually strike Their glass barrier that arrests the sight. But the world's being hides in the volcanoes And the foul history pressed into its core; And to myself my being is my childhood And passion and entrails and the roots of senses; I'm pressed into the inside of a mask At the back of love, the back of air, the back of light.

Stephen Spender

Passion, Sight, Air

Stephen Spender (2015). “New Collected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.189, Faber & Faber

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I think continually of those who were truly great . Who, from the womb, remembered the soul 's history Through corridors of light where the hours are suns , Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire , Should tell of the spirit clothed from head to foot in song .

Stephen Spender

Song, Ambition, Thinking

Stephen Spender (2015). “Selected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.23, Faber & Faber

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Bright clasp of her whole hand around my finger My daughter as we walk together now. All my life I'll feel a ring invisibly Circle this bone with shining When she is grown.

Stephen Spender

Daughter, Father, Hands

Stephen Spender (2015). “Selected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.86, Faber & Faber

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History has tongues Has angels has guns has saved has praised Today proclaims Achievements of her exiles long returned Now no more rootless, for whom her printed page Glazes their bruised waste years in one Balancing present sky.

Stephen Spender

Angel, Gun, Years

Stephen Spender (2015). “New Collected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.136, Faber & Faber

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Deep in the winter plain, two armies Dig their machinery, to destroy each other. Men freeze and hunger. No one is given leave On either side, except the dead, and wounded.

Stephen Spender

Army, Winter, Men

Stephen Spender (2015). “Selected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.51, Faber & Faber

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One of my great surprises when I was in America was about twenty-five years ago in Harvard, hearing Randall Jarrell deliver a bitter attack on the way poets were neglected. Yet there were about two thousand people present, and he was being paid five hundred dollars for delivering this attack.

Stephen Spender

America, Years, Two

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All the lessons learned, unlearned; The young, who learned to read, now blind, Their eyes with an archaic film; The peasant relapses to a stumbling tune, Following the donkey's bray; These only remember to forget. But somewhere some word presses, On the high door of a skull and in some corner, Of an irrefrangible eye, Some old man memory jumps to a child - Spark from the days of energy. And the child hoards it like a bitter toy.

Stephen Spender

Children, Memories, Eye

"Selected Poems (Fall of a City)". Book by Stephen Spender, 1941.

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My brothers and sister and I were brought up in an atmosphere which I would describe as 'Puritan decadence'. Puritanism names the behaviour which is condemned; Puritan decadence regards the name itself as indecent, and pretends that the object behind that name does not exist until it is named.

Stephen Spender

Brother, Names, Atmosphere

1951 World within World, p.314-15.

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Since we are what we are, what shall we be But what we are? We are, we have Six feet and seventy years, to see The light , and then resign it for the grave .

Stephen Spender

Light, Years, Feet

Stephen Spender (2015). “New Collected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.287, Faber & Faber

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Born: February 28, 1909
Died: July 16, 1995
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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