Alis Grave Nil

Poetry and Philosophy

[eternalsages]

Your breast on my breast,       Our voices mingling We'd finally reach the ravine,       And then the forest... And like a little death,       Your heart overcome, You'd say: carry me       Eyes barely open... And I would, tremblingly,       Into the woods: A bird whistling an air:       By the hazelnut tree... I would speak into your lips;       Stepping tirelessly, cradling Your body like a baby by its cradle,       Drunk with blood That flows beneath your skin       As it blossoms rose: I speak my mind       That your mind knows...

Arthur Rimbaud, from “Nina Replies”

[eternalsages]

Laughing at me, drunk and wild,       I'd take you Just like that -- by your beautiful hair       How deeply I'd drink Your berried breath,       Your flowery flesh Laughing as the chill breeze kissed you       Like a thief.

Arthur Rimbaud, from “Nina Replies”

[eternalsages]

One winter, we'll take a train, a little rose-colored car       Upholstered blue. We'll be so comfortable. A nest       Of wild kisses awaits in every cushioned corner. You'll close your eyes to shadows       Grimacing through windows This belligerent nocturnal realm, inhabited       By black demons and black wolves. Then you'll feel a tickle on your cheek... A little kiss like a crazed spider       Fleeing down your neck... Bending your head backwards, you'll say: 'Get it!' -- And we'll take our time finding the beast       -- While it roams.

Arthur Rimbaud, “Winter Dream: to... Her”; Written on a train, 7 October 1870

[eternalsages]

Perhaps a Night awaits me When I'll drink peacefully In an old City, And die happy: Patience rewarded.

Arthur Rimbaud, from “A Pauper Dreams”

[eternalsages]

I celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long.

William Butler Yeats, from “XI. From ‘Oedipus at Colonus’”

[eternalsages]

We sat under an old thorn-tree And talked away the night, Told all that had been said or done Since first we saw the light, And when we talked of growing up Knew that we'd halved a soul And fell the one in t'other's arms That we might make it whole.

William Butler Yeats, from “Summer and Spring”

[eternalsages]

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days! Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways.

William Butler Yeats, from “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time”

[eternalsages]

Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.

William Butler Yeats, from “Into the Twilight”

[eternalsages]

I set out to discover the why of it, and to transform my pleasure into knowledge.

Charles Baudelaire (via eternalsages)

[eternalsages]

Libraries have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been seduced by their labyrinthine logic.

Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night (via eternalsages)

[eternalsages]

Some moralist or mythological poet Compares the solitary soul to a swan; I am satisfied with that.

William Butler Yeats, from “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen”

[eternalsages]

The truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind --

Emily Dickinson, from poem number, 1129

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The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections.

Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”

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Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”

[eternalsages]

There never was any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now, And will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”

[eternalsages]

“The pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and learn all the more.”

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (via eternalsages)

[eternalsages]

I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the Beautiful even if my night's labours should be burnt every morning and no eye ever shine upon them.

John Keats, from his letter, “To Richard Woodhouse”