“What I had not foreseen
Was the gradual day
Weakening the will
Leaking the brightness away”
"What I Expected Was" (l. 9–12)
"An Elementary School Classroom In A Slum" in Modern British Poetry (1962) edited by Louis Untermeyer (1962) variant : Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.
Ruins and Visions (1942)
“For I had expected always
Some brightness to hold in trust,
Some final innocence
To save from dust”
"What I Expected Was" (l. 25–28). . .
“There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife — a tyrannical midwife.”
Lecture at Brooklyn College, as quoted in The New York Times (20 November 1984)
“They think how one life hums, revolves and toils,
One cog in a golden singing hive…”
"The Funeral" (l. 13–14)
"In Railway Halls, on Pavements Near the Traffic"
"Napoleon In 1814"
The Still Centre (1939)
“History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.”
As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Times (1993) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 247
Remark in 1980, after riding in a taxi for 287 miles, after his plane was grounded because of bad weather, to attend a dinner date with Jacqueline Onassis; as quoted in "Stephen Spender, Toady: Was there any substance to his politics and art?" by Stephen Metcalf at Slate.com (7 February 2005) http://www.slate.com/id/2113164/
"The Human Situation"
The Still Centre (1939)
"The Express" (l. 1–3) in Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1988) edited by Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair
"To A Spanish Poet" (for Manuel Altolaguirre)
The Still Centre (1939)