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“There was a daily exchange of courtesies between our machine guns and the Germans' at stand-to; by removing cartridges from the ammunition-belt one could rap out the rhythm of the familiar prostitutes' call: "MEET me DOWN in PICC-a-DILL-y", to which the Germans would reply, though in slower tempo, because our guns were faster than theirs: "YES, with-OUT my DRAWERS ON!"”

Robert Graves

Source: Goodbye to All That (1929), Ch.16.

“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

"Recalling War," lines 1–6, from Collected Poems 1938 (1938).
Poems

“Ancient Europe had no gods. The Great Goddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, and omnipotent; and the concept of fatherhood had not been introduced into religious thought. She took lovers, but for pleasure, not to provide her children with a father. Men feared, adored, and obeyed the matriarch; the hearth which she tended in a cave or hut being their earliest social centre, and motherhood their prime mystery.”

Robert Graves book The Greek Myths

Volume 1, Introduction
The Greek Myths (1955)

“Cuinchy bred rats. They came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly. While I stayed here with the Welsh, a new officer joined the company... When he turned in that night, he heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand.”

Robert Graves

Source: Goodbye to All That (1929), Ch.14

“Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys
Are here discreetly blent;
Admire, you ladies, read, you boys,
My Country Sentiment.”

Robert Graves

"A First Review"
Country Sentiment (1920)

“I am an old man
With my bones very brittle,
Though I am a poor old man
Worth very little,
Yet I suck at my long pipe
At peace in the sun,
I do not fret nor much regret
That my work is done.”

Robert Graves

"Brittle Bones"
Country Sentiment (1920)

“He is older than the seas,
Older than the plains and hills,
And older than the light that spills
From the sun's hot wheel on these.
He wakes the gale that tears your trees,
He sings to you from window sills.”

Robert Graves

"The God Called Poetry"
Country Sentiment (1920)

“Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage
Once more with pomp and greed and rage;
Courtly ministers will stop
At home and fight to the last drop;
By the million men will die
In some new horrible agony...”

Robert Graves

"The Next War"
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

“Poet, never chase the dream.
Laugh yourself and turn away.
Mask your hunger, let it seem
Small matter if he come or stay;
But when he nestles in your hand at last,
Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.”

Robert Graves

"A Pinch of Salt"
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

“Robin, and Red Riding Hood
Take together to the wood,
And Sir Galahad lies hid
In a cave with Captain Kidd.
None of all the magic hosts,
None remain but a few ghosts
Of timorous heart, to linger on
Weeping for lost Babylon.”

Robert Graves

"Babylon"
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

“Wisdom made him old and wary
Banishing the Lords of Faery.
Wisdom made a breach and battered
Babylon to bits: she scattered
To the hedges and ditches
All our nursery gnomes and witches.”

Robert Graves

"Babylon"
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

“But we are gifted, even in November,
Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense
Of her nakedly worn magnificence
We forget cruelty and past betrayal,
Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.”

Robert Graves book The White Goddess

"The White Goddess," lines 18–22, from Poems and Satires (1951)
Poems

“There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;
To it all lines or lesser guards belong
That startle with their shining
Such common stories as they stray into.”

Robert Graves

"To Juan at the Winter Solstice" from Poems 1938-1945 (1946)
Poems

“His wiles were witty and his fame far known,
Every king's daughter sought him for her own,
Yet he was nothing to be won or lost.
All lands to him were Ithaca: love-tossed
He loathed the fraud, yet would not bed alone.”

Robert Graves

"Ulysses" from Poems 1930-1933 (1933)
Poems

“To the much-tossed Ulysses, never done
With woman whether gowned as wife or whore,
Penelope and Circe seemed as one:
She like a whore made his lewd fancies run,
And wifely she a hero to him bore.”

Robert Graves

"Ulysses" from Poems 1930-1933 (1933)
Poems

“Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer.”

Robert Graves

“If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of a man who desrves them.”

Robert Graves

Robert Graves Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
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