"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

W.H. Auden - Stop all the Clocks

W. H. Auden, 1937




"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
prevent the dog from barking, with a juicy bone;
silence the pianos and with muffled drum
bring out the coffin, let the mourners come."

"Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead,
scribbling on the sky the message he is dead;
put crepe bows around the white necks of the public doves,
let traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves."

"He was my north, my south, my east and west,
my working week and my sunday rest;
my noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong."

"The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
for nothing now can ever come to any good"





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