“Separated from the citadels and hushed
corridors of Europe (…) American Adam and Eve found themselves naked, gazing
upon the vast richness of a bewildering absence. (…) Humankind stood alone before
God and nature, having to invent itself, its voice and vision.” (Parini, 1995,
p.4).
Emerson:
“”Standing on the bare ground – my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted
into infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball;
I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through
me; I am part and parcel of God.” (Parini, 1995, p.6). “One thing the
Transcendentalists hoped to transcend was individuality itself.” (Parini, 1995,
p.7).
“The
flame consume my dwelling place.
And
when I could no longer look,
I
blest his name that gave and took,
That
laid my goods now in the dust,
Yea,
so it was, and so ‘twas just.
It
was His own, it was not mine.” (Bradstreet, ‘Here follows some verses upon the
burning of our house July 10th, 1666. Copied out of a loose paper.’
Parini, 1995, p.31).
“The
stream , the trees, the grass, the sighing wind,
All
of hem utter sound of admonishment
And
grave parental love.
They
are not of our race, they seem to say,
And
yet have knowledge of our moral race
And
somewhat majestic sympathy,
Something
of pity for the puny clay,
That
holds & boasts the immeasurable mind.” (Emerson ‘The river’ in Parini,
1995, p.103).
“Should you ask me, whence the stories?
Whence
these legends and traditions,
With
the odors of the forest,
With
the dew and damp of meadows,
With
the curling smoke of wogwams,
With
the rushing of great rivers,
With
their frequent repetitions,
And
their wild reverberations,
As
of thunder in the mountains?
I
should answer, I should tell you.” (Wadsworth Longfellow ‘The songs of
Hiawatha’ in Parini, 1995, p.137).
“And
all the great traditions of the past
They
saw reflected in the coming time.
And
thus forever with reverted look
The
mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling
it backward, like the Hebrew book,
Till
life became a Legend of the dead.” (Wadsworth Longfellow ‘The Jewish Cemetery
at Newport’ in Parini, 1995, p.141).
“Within
the circuit of this plodding life
There
enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished
fair as is the violet
Or
anemone, when the spring strews them
By
some meandering rivulet, which make
The
best philosophy untrue that aims
But
to console man for his grievances.” (Thoreau ‘Within the circuit of this
plodding life’ in Parini, 1995, p.173).
“I
celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And
what I assume you shall assume,
For
every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
O
loafe and invite my soul,
I
lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.” (Whitman ‘Song of
myself’ in Parini, 1995, p.181).
“Clear
and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.” (Whitman
‘Song of myself’ in Parini, 1995, p.183).
“All
truths wait in all things,
they
neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
(…)
Only
what proves itself to every man and woman is so,
Only
what nobody denies is so.” (Whitman ‘Song of myself’ in Parini, 1995, p.194).
“I
saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war
But
I saw they were not as was thought,
They
themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not,
The
living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,
And
the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer’d,
And
the armies that remain’d suffer’d.” (Whitman ‘Why Lilacs last in they dooryard
bloom’d’ in Parini, 1995, p.223).
“I
can wade grief.
Whole
pools of it,-
I’m
used to that.
But
the least push of joy
Breaks
up my feet,
And
I tip – drunken.” (Dickinson ‘I can wade grief’ in Parini, 1995, p.250).
“Pain
has an element of blank;
I
cannot recollect
When
it began, or if there were
A
day when it was not.
It
has not future but itself,
Its
infinite realms contain
Its
past, enlightened to perceive
New
periods of pain.” (Dickinson ‘Pain has an element of blank’ in Parini, 1995,
p.250).
“Out
walking in the frozen swamp one gray day,
I
paused and said, ‘I will turn back from here.
No,
I will go on farther – and we shall see.”
The
hard snow held me, save where now and then
One
foot went through. The view was all in lines
Straight
up and down of tall slim trees
Too
much alike to mark or name a place by
So
as to sayfor certain I was here
Or
somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A
small bird flew before me. He was careful
To
put a tree between us when he lighted,
And
say no word to tell me who he was
Who
was so foolish as to think what he thought.” (Frost ‘The wood pile’ in Parini,
1995, p.311).
“Back out of all this now too much for us,
back
in time made simple by the loss
Of
detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off.” (Frost ‘Directive’ in Parini, 1995,
p.317).
“It
feels good as it is without the giant,
A
thinker of the first idea. Perhaps
The
truth depends on a walk around a lake,
A
composing as the body tires, a stop
To
see hepatica, a stop to watch
A
definition growing certain and
A
wait within that certainty.” (Stevens ‘It must be abstract’ in Parini, 1995,
p.311).
“The
apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals
on a wet, black bough.” (Ezra Pound ‘In a station of the Metro’ in Parini,
1995, p.358).
“Psychology
which explains everything
explains
nothing
and
we are still in doubt.” (Moore ‘Marriage’ in Parini, 1995, p.384).
“There never was a war that was
not
inward; I must
fight
till I have conquered in myself what
causes
war, but I would not believe it.” (Moore ‘In Distrust of Merit’ in Parini,
1995, p.395).
“Let
us go then, you and I,
when
the evening is spread out against the sky
Like
a patient etherised upon a table.” (Eliot ‘The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’
in Parini, 1995, p.400).
“In
a minute there is time
For
decision and revision which a minute will reverse.” (Eliot ‘The love song of J.
Alfred Prufrock’ in Parini, 1995, p.401).
“Would
it have been worth wile,
To
have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To
have squeezed the universe into a ball
To
roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To
say: “I am Lazarus come from the dead,
Come
back to tell you all, I shall tell you all” –
If
one, settling a pillow by her head
Should
say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That
is not it, at all.” (Eliot ‘The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ in Parini,
1995, p.403).
“April
is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs
out of the dead land, mixing
Memory
and desire, stirring
Dull
roots with spring rain.” (Eliot ‘The Waste Land’ in Parini, 1995, p.406).
“The
river’s tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf
Clutch
and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses
the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet
Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The
river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk
handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends.
Or
other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And
their friends, the loiteringheirs of City director;
Departed,
have left no addresses.” (Eliot ‘The Waste Land’ in Parini, 1995, p.410).
“A
poem should not mean
But
be.” (Macleish ‘Ars Poetica’ in Parini, 1995, p.424).
“my
father moved through dooms of love
through
sames of am through haves of give
singing
each morning out of each night
my
father moved through depths of height
this
motionless forgetful where
turned
at his glance to shining here
that
if(so timid air is firm)
under
his eyes would stir and squirm.” (e.e. Cumming ‘my father moved through dooms
of love’ in Parini, 1995, p.440).
“The
late-season pain gnawing deep at the human bone
As
the season burned on to its end.” (Robert Penn Warren ‘Amazing Grace in the
Back Country’ in Parini, 1995, p.501).
“I
am renewed by death, thought of my death,
The
dry scent of a dying garden in September,
The
wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
What
I love is near at hand,
Always,
in earth and air.” (Theodore Roethke ‘The far field’ in Parini, 1995, p.511).
“When
by me in the dusk my child sits down
I
am myself.” (John Berryman ‘Homage to Mistress Bradstreet’ in Parini, 1995,
p.544).
“You
could cut the brackish winds with a knife
here
in Nantucket, and cast up the time
When
the Lord God formed man from the sea’s slime
And
breathed into his face the breath of life,
And
blue lung’d combers lumbered to the kill.
The
Lord survives the rainbow of His will.” (Robert Lowell ‘The Quaker Graveyard in
Nantucket’ in Parini, 1995, p.558).
“I
remember Ted Weiss saying,
“At
the exhibition I suddenly realized
Picasso
had to re-make everything he laid his eyes on
Into
an art object.
He
couldn’t let the world alone.
Since
then I don’t write every morning.”” (Mona van Duyn ‘Moose in the morning,
northern Maine’’ in Parini, 1995, p.578).
“On
the telephone wire
all
the little golden bells are ringing
as
that compulsive old scribbler, the universe,
jots
down another day.” (Mona van Duyn ‘Moose in the morning, northern Maine’’ in
Parini, 1995, p.579).
“Think
of forgetting the past.
It
was an exercise requiring further practice;
A
difficult exercise, played through by someone else.
Overheard
from another room, now,
It
seems full of mistakes.” (Donals Justice ‘Sonatina in Yellow’ in Parini, 1995,
p.597).
“but enjoying the freedom that
Scope
eludes my grasp, that there is no finality of vision,
That
I have perceived nothing completely,
That
tomorrow a new walk is a new walk.” (AR Ammons ‘Corsons Inlet’ in Parini, 1995,
p.602).
“Death
never entered his poems, but rowed, with his hair down, far out on the lake,
laughing
and looking up at the sky.” (Charles Wright ‘Portrait of the artist with Li Po’
in Parini, 1995, p.698).
“Longing,
we say, because desire is full
of
endless distances.” (Robert Hass ‘Meditations at lagunitas’ in Parini, 1995,
p.715).
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