The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity. Robert Graves More Quotes by Robert Graves More Quotes From Robert Graves When the immense drugged universe explodes In a cascade of unendurable colour And leaves us gasping naked, This is no more than the ectasy of chaos: Hold fast, with both hands, to that royal love Which alone, as we know certainly, restores Fragmentation into true being. Ecstasy of Chaos Robert Graves royal naked hands Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter, So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her head, as she rode by. Robert Graves singing daughter bird Love at first sight'some say misnaming Discovery of twinned helplessness Against the huge tug of procreation. But friendship at first sight? This also Catches fiercely at the surprised heart So that the cheek blanches then blushes. Robert Graves sight heart discovery The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight. Robert Graves butterfly white art There is one story and one story only. Robert Graves crafts stories Haunted Gulp down your wine, old friends of mine, Roar through the darkness, stamp and sing And lay ghost hands on everything, But leave the noonday's warm sunshine To living lads for mirth and wine. I met you suddenly down the street, Strangers assume your phantom faces, You grin at me from daylight places, Dead, long dead, I'm ashamed to greet Dead men down the morning street. Robert Graves sunshine wine morning The difference between you and her (whom I to you did once prefer) Is clear enough to settle: She like a diamond shone, but you Shine like an early drop of dew Poised on a red rose petal. The dew-drop carries in its eye Mountain and forest, sea and sky, With every change of weather; Contrariwise, a diamond splits The prospect into idle bits That none can piece together. Robert Graves eye sea sky Poetry began in the matriarchal age, and derives its magic from the moon, not from the sun. No poet can hope to understand the nature of poetry unless he has had a vision of the Naked King crucified to the lopped oak, and watched the dancers, red-eyed from the acrid smoke of the sacrificial fires, stamping out the measure of the dance, their bodies bent uncouthly forward, with a monotonous chant of "Kill! kill! kill!" and "Blood! blood! blood! Robert Graves moon kings fire Love is universal migraine, A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason. Symptoms of true love Are leanness, jealousy, Laggard dawns; Are omens and nightmares - Listening for a knock, Waiting for a sign: For a touch of her fingers In a darkened room, For a searching look. Take courage, lover! Could you endure such pain At any hand but hers? Robert Graves pain love-is hands The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites. Robert Graves exaltation experience religious I don't really feel my poems are mine at all. I didn't create them out of nothing. I owe them to my relations with other people. Robert Graves poetry relation people There's a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility. Robert Graves sea joy wind Any honest housewife would sort them out,/ Having a nose for fish, an eye for apples. Robert Graves apples eye noses Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes. Robert Graves eye rain men Through the window I can see Rooks above the cherry-tree, Sparrows in the violet bed, Bramble-bush and bumble-bee, And old red bracken smoulders still Among boulders on the hill, Far too bright to seem quite dead. But old Death, who can't forget, Waits his time and watches yet, Waits and watches by the door. Robert Graves waiting doors tree When I'm killed, don't think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there's one thing that I know well, I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell! Robert Graves zion woods thinking Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart's desire. Robert Graves fire heart children Where nature with accustomed round Sweeps and garnishes the ground With kindly beauty, warm or cold Alternate seasons never old: Heathen, how furiously you rage, Cursing this blood and brimstone age, How furiously against your will You kill and kill again, and kill: All thought of peace behind you cast, Till like small boys with fear aghast, Each cries for God to understand, 'I could not help it, it was my hand. Robert Graves boys hands blood But give thanks, at least, that you still have Frost's poems; and when you feel the need of solitude, retreat to the companionship of moon, water, hills and trees. Retreat, he reminds us, should not be confused with escape. And take these poems along for good luck! Robert Graves confused good-luck moon Hate is a fear, and fear is rot That cankers root and fruit alike, Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not, Strike with no madness when you strike. Robert Graves hate fighting roots
