All day long the door of the sub-conscious remains just ajar; we slip through to the other side, and return again, as easily and secretly as a cat. Walter de La Mare More Quotes by Walter de La Mare More Quotes From Walter de La Mare Once a man strays out of the common herd, he's more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels. Walter de La Mare angel common men After all, what is every man? A horde of ghosts - like a Chinese nest of boxes - oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death lies behind us, not in front - in our ancestors, back and back until. Walter de La Mare chinese men lying Without imagination of the one kind or of the other, mortal existence is indeed a dreary and prosaic business... Illumined by the imagination, our life, whatever its defeats - is a never-ending unforeseen strangeness and adventure and mystery. Walter de La Mare kind imagination adventure What a haunting, inescapable riddle life was. Walter de La Mare haunting riddle And some win peace who spend Walter de La Mare dark winning death He got out of bed and peeped through the blinds. To the east and opposite to him gardens and an apple-orchard lay, and there in strange liquid tranquility hung the morning star, and rose, rilling into the dusk of night the first grey of dawn. The street beneath its autumn leaves was vacant, charmed, deserted. Walter de La Mare autumn stars morning Slowly, silently, now the moon Walter de La Mare silver moon night For beauty with sorrow Is a burden hard to be borne: The evening light on the foam, and the swans, there; That music, remote, forlorn. Walter de La Mare evening-light swans sorrow An hour's terror is better than a lifetime of timidity. Walter de La Mare hours terror lifetime Lear, Macbeth. Mercutio – they live on their own as it were. The newspapers are full of them, if we were only the Shakespeares to see it. Have you ever been in a Police Court? Have you ever watched tradesmen behind their counters? My soul, the secrets walking in the streets! You jostle them at every corner. There's a Polonius in every first-class railway carriage, and as many Juliets as there are boarding-schools. ... How inexhaustibly rich everything is, if you only stick to life. Walter de La Mare soul class school Very old are the woods; And the buds that break Out of the brier's boughs, When March winds wake, So old with their beauty are-- Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose. Walter de La Mare rose wind men Now that cleverness was the fashion most people were clever - even perfect fools; and cleverness after all was often only a bore: all head and no body Walter de La Mare fashion clever people What lovely things Thy hand hath made. Walter de La Mare lovely-things lovely hands A lost but happy dream may shed its light upon our waking hours, and the whole day may be infected with the gloom of a dreary or sorrowful one; yet of neither may we be able to recover a trace. Walter de La Mare light dream may When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovelier things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dream burns each enchanted face, With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place. When music sounds, all that I was I am Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came; And from Time's woods break into distant song The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along. Walter de La Mare flower dream song Dobbin at manger pulls his hay: Gone is another summer's day. Walter de La Mare hay gone summer Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour Walter de La Mare slumber lovely looks We wake and whisper awhile, But, the day gone by, Silence and sleep like fields Of amaranth lie. Walter de La Mare days-gone-by sleep lying His are the quiet steeps of dreamland, The waters of no-more-pain; His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars, "Rest, rest, and rest again. Walter de La Mare pain stars water Too late for fruit, too soon for flowers. Walter de La Mare fruit flower too-late