Nathalia Crane Quotes

Nathalia Clara Ruth Crane was an American poet and novelist who became famous as a child prodigy after the publication of her first book of poetry, The Janitor's Boy, written at age 10 and published two years later. Her poetry was first published in The New York Sun when she was only 9 years old, the paper unaware that she was a child. She was elected into the British Society of Authors, Playwrights, and Composers in 1925, written up in The American Mercury and later became a professor of English at San Diego State University.After the publication of her second volume of poetry, Lava Lane, poet Edwin Markham implied that the publications were probably a hoax, stating "It seems impossible to me that a girl so immature could have written these poems. They are beyond the powers of a girl of twelve. The sophisticated viewpoint of sex, ...knowledge of history and archeology found in these pages place them beyond the reach of any juvenile mind."Crane was dubbed "The Brooklyn Bard" by the time she was 13 and became part of the Louis Untermeyer poetry circle during her late teens, with Untermeyer contributing an introduction to her 1936 volume Swear by the Night & Other Poems. He was an early promoter of her work, stating, "some of the critics explained the work by insisting that the child was some sort of medium, an instrument unaware of what was played upon it; others, considering the book a hoax, scorned the fact that any child could have written verses so smooth in execution and so remarkable in spiritual overtones" and that "the appeal of such lines is not that they have been written by a child but by a poet."She is supposedly related to Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage, and the "well-known publicist," Dr. Frank Crane. Wikipedia

✵ 11. August 1913 – 22. October 1998

Nathalia Crane photo

Nathalia Crane: 37 quotes2 likes

Famous Nathalia Crane Quotes

“Across the downs a hummingbird
Came dipping through the bowers,
He pivoted on emptiness
To scrutinize the flowers.”

"The First Reformer"
Lava Lane and Other Poems (1925)

“Yielding to nothing — not even the rose,
The dust has its reasons wherever it goes.”

"The Dust" 
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)
Context: Treating the sword blade the same as the staff,
Turning the chariot wheel into chaff.
Toppling a pillar and nudging a wall,
Building a sand pile to counter each fall.
Yielding to nothing — not even the rose,
The dust has its reasons wherever it goes.

“I linger on the flathouse roof, the moonlight is divine.
But my heart is all aflutter like the washing on the line.”

"The Flathouse Roof"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)

“Great is the rose
That challenges the crypt,
And quotes milleniums
Against the grave.”

"Tadmore"
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)

“Oh, we have had great lovers that we followed to the pyre;
Our boasts out-do the Sabine girls—the Mosque of St. Sophia.
And we are very sure of ours, for when a city falls,
They seize us and they love us and they hurl us from the walls.”

"Our Lovers"
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)

“He'll carry me off, I know that he will,
For his hair is exceedingly red;
And the only thing that occurs to me
Is to dutifully shiver in bed.”

"The Janitor's Boy"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)

Nathalia Crane Quotes about God

“Lo and behold! God made this
starry wold,
The maggot and the mold; lo and
behold!
He taught the grass contentment
blade by blade,
The sanctity of sameness in a shade.”

Impromptu poem, made at the request of reporters, printed in "Markham v. Prodigy" http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,928761,00.html TIME magazine (23 November 1925)

“The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May;
But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way.”

"The Symbols"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down;
The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown;The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May;
But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way.Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes,
Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs.</p

“The gods released a vision on a world forespent and dull;
They sent it as a challenge by the sea hawk and the gull.”

Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928), The Wings of Lead
Context: The gods released a vision on a world forespent and dull;
They sent it as a challenge by the sea hawk and the gull.It roused the Norman eagerness, the Albion cliffs turned red:
"You fly the wings of logic — can you fly the wings of lead?

“You cannot choose your battlefield,
God does that for you;
But you can plant a standard
Where a standard never flew.”

"The Colors" (These lines were actually created by the author Stephen Crane).
Misattributed

“A thousand ardent oilers swung the long spout 'twixt their nods,
And tried to glimpse a meaning in the challenge of the gods.

And then one night there landed on a Mineola swale
A plane that looked like pewter, with a carrier of mail.

Its wings were tinged like tea-box skins, each truss of shadow gray,
Its cabin but an alcove slung beneath a metal ray.

The Spirit of St. Louis was inscribed upon the lee;
It came from out a province that had never seen the sea.”

Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928), The Wings of Lead

Nathalia Crane Quotes about the truth

“Let go the lure
The striving to unmake;

Behold the truth
Whenever heart may ache
There is a glory
In a great mistake.”

"Imperfection"
Swear By the Night and Other Poems (1936)

“Every gaudy color
Is a bit of truth.”

"The Vestal"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>Finally she faltered;
Saw at last, forsooth,
Every gaudy color
Is a bit of truth.
Then the gates were opened;
Miracles were seen;
That instructed damsel
Donned a gown of green;Wore it in a churchyard,
All arrayed with care;
And a painted rainbow
Shone above her there.</p

“Once a pallid Vestal
Doubted truth in blue;
Listed red in ruin,
Harried every hue;”

"The Vestal" 
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>Once a pallid Vestal
Doubted truth in blue;
Listed red in ruin,
Harried every hue;Barricaded vision,
Garbed herself in sighs;
Ridiculed the birthmarks
Of the butterflies.</p

“Let go the lure
The striving to unmake;

Behold the truth
Whenever heart may ache
There is a glory
In a great mistake.”

"Imperfection"
Swear By the Night and Other Poems (1936)

Nathalia Crane Quotes

“That instructed damsel
Donned a gown of green;”

"The Vestal"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>Finally she faltered;
Saw at last, forsooth,
Every gaudy color
Is a bit of truth.
Then the gates were opened;
Miracles were seen;
That instructed damsel
Donned a gown of green;Wore it in a churchyard,
All arrayed with care;
And a painted rainbow
Shone above her there.</p

“The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down;
The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown;”

"The Symbols"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down;
The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown;The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May;
But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way.Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes,
Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs.</p

“The starry brocade of the summer night
Is linked to us as part of our estate”

"Tomorrow"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: The starry brocade of the summer night
Is linked to us as part of our estate;
And every bee that wings its sidelong flight
Assurance of a sweeter, fairer fate.

“The sun shall shine in ages yet to be,
The musing moon illumine pastures dim,
And afterwards a new nativity
For all who slept the dreamless interim.”

"Tomorrow" 
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)

“Barricaded vision,
Garbed herself in sighs;
Ridiculed the birthmarks
Of the butterflies.”

"The Vestal" 
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>Once a pallid Vestal
Doubted truth in blue;
Listed red in ruin,
Harried every hue;Barricaded vision,
Garbed herself in sighs;
Ridiculed the birthmarks
Of the butterflies.</p

“They lower pails from heaven's walls to catch the milk-maids mirth.”

"Prescience" 
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>A precious place is Paradise and none may know its worth,
But Eden ever longeth for the knicknacks of the earth.The angels grow quite wistful over worldly things below;
They hear the hurdy-gurdies in the Candle Makers Row.They listen for the laughter from the antics of the earth;
They lower pails from heaven's walls to catch the milk-maids mirth.</p

“Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes,
Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs.”

"The Symbols"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down;
The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown;The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May;
But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way.Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes,
Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs.</p

“Wore it in a churchyard,
All arrayed with care;
And a painted rainbow
Shone above her there.”

"The Vestal"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>Finally she faltered;
Saw at last, forsooth,
Every gaudy color
Is a bit of truth.
Then the gates were opened;
Miracles were seen;
That instructed damsel
Donned a gown of green;Wore it in a churchyard,
All arrayed with care;
And a painted rainbow
Shone above her there.</p

“The very serpents bite their tails; the bees forget to sting,
For a language so celestial setteth up a wondering.”

"The Symbols"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>The very serpents bite their tails; the bees forget to sting,
For a language so celestial setteth up a wondering.And the touch of absent mindedness is more than any line,
Since direction counts for nothing when the gods set up a sign.</p

“Treating the sword blade the same as the staff,
Turning the chariot wheel into chaff.”

"The Dust" 
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)
Context: Treating the sword blade the same as the staff,
Turning the chariot wheel into chaff.
Toppling a pillar and nudging a wall,
Building a sand pile to counter each fall.
Yielding to nothing — not even the rose,
The dust has its reasons wherever it goes.

“A precious place is Paradise and none may know its worth,
But Eden ever longeth for the knicknacks of the earth.”

"Prescience" 
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)
Context: p>A precious place is Paradise and none may know its worth,
But Eden ever longeth for the knicknacks of the earth.The angels grow quite wistful over worldly things below;
They hear the hurdy-gurdies in the Candle Makers Row.They listen for the laughter from the antics of the earth;
They lower pails from heaven's walls to catch the milk-maids mirth.</p

“The rose has told In one simplicity.
That never life
Relinquishes a bloom
But to bestow
An ancient confidence.”

"Tadmore"
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)

“Said the tiger to the lily,
Said the viper to the rose,
Let us marry so our children
May attain the double pose.

With a feline half a flower —
With the attar in the asp
We could institute a slaughter
That would make a planet gasp.”

"Proposals"
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)

“Cloud-made mountains towered,
Beckoning to me;
Visionary triremes
Talked about the sea…”

The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)

“When you return, the youngest of the seers,
Released from fetters of ancestral pose,
There will be beauty waiting down the years —
Revisions of the ruby and the rose.”

"Tomorrow"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)

“In the darkness, who would answer for the color of a rose,
Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes?”

"The Blind Girl"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)

“He found the harem filled with rocking maids
Surrendered to the orgies of the sob.”

"Tadmore"
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)

“Great is the rose
Infected by the tomb,
Yet burgeoning
Indifferent to death.”

"Tadmore"
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)

“A single-motored miracle, a lead mine on each flank;
Below a shadow swept and awed the hundred-fathom bank.”

Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928), The Wings of Lead

“Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy,
And the janitor's boy loves me;
He's going to hunt for a desert isle
In our geography.”

"The Janitor's Boy"
The Janitor's Boy And Other Poems (1924)

“And the eyes of all look upward seeing sign-word drawing nigh,
The stony wings of Egypt coming back across the sky;

We hear the clinking tamborine of Miriam anew;
We believe in every miracle since Lindbergh flew the blue —

The wonder of the long draw when the bowstring is a thread —
The beauty of a courage that can raise the wings of lead.”

Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928), The Wings of Lead

“The world is growing gentle,
But few know what she owes
To the understanding lily
And the judgment of the rose.”

"Proposals"
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)

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