Walter de la Mare citations

“But beauty vanishes; beauty passes;
However rare—rare it be;
And when I crumble, who will remember
This lady of the West Country?”

“Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon.”

“After all, what is every man? A horde of ghosts – like a Chinese nest of boxes – oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death lies behind us, not in front – in our ancestors, back and back until…”

“God has mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly; first the blow, hours afterwards the bruise.”

“Bang! Now the animal
Is dead and dumb and done.
Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again,
Eat or sleep or drink again, oh, what fun!”

“Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.”

“It's a very odd thing&mdas;
As odd as can be—
That whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.”

“His are the quiet steeps of dreamland,
The waters of no-more-pain;
His ram’s bell rings ‘neath an arch of stars,
“Rest, rest, and rest again.””

“What is the world, O soldiers?
It is I,
I, this incessant snow,
This northern sky.”

“A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.”

“Old Rover in his moss-greened house
Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse.”

““Bunches of grapes,” says Timothy;
“Pomegranates pink,” says Elaine;
“A junket of cream and a cranberry tart
For me,” says Jane.”

“Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.”

“Who knocks?’ ‘I, who was beautiful,
Beyond all dreams to restore,
I from the roots of the dark thorn am hither,
And knock on the door.”

“So, blind to Someone
I must be.”

“"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.”

“Poor tired Tim! It’s sad for him
He lags the long bright morning through,
Ever so tired of nothing to do.”

“Three jolly huntsmen,
In coats of red,
Rode their horses
Up to bed.”

“Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Some one came knocking,
I’m sure—sure—sure.”

“Softly along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.”

“Wonderful lovely there she sat,
Singing the night away,
All in the solitudinous sea
Of that there lonely bay.”

“A bumpity ride in a wagon of hay”

“Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour—let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou hast paid thy utmost blessing.”

“A face peered. All the grey night
In chaos of vacancy shone;
Nought but vast sorrow was there—
The sweet cheat gone.”

“What lovely things
Thy hand hath made.”

“"Is anybody there?" said the Traveler,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor.”

“All but blind
In his chambered hole
Gropes for worms
The four-clawed Mole.”

“Who said "Peacock Pie"?
The old king to the sparrow:
Who said "Crops are ripe"?
Rust to the harrow.

Who said, "Ay, mum's the word"?
Sexton to willow.
Who said, "Green dusk for dream?"
Moss for a pillow.

Who said, "All Time’s delight
Hath she for narrow bed;
Life’s troubled bubble broken"?—
That’s what I said.”

“Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:
Gone is another summer’s day.”