“O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.”
As I Walked Out One Evening (1937)
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W. H. Auden 122
Anglo-American poet 1907–1973Related quotes

“I must plunge into the water of doubt again and again.”
Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119

“The lane to the land of the dead.”
Neuromancer (1984)
Context: The lane to the land of the dead. Where you are, my friend. Marie-France, my lady, she prepared this road, but her lord choked her off before I could read the book of her days. Neuro from the nerves, the silver paths. Romancer. Necromancer. I call up the dead. But no, my friend," and the boy did a little dance, brown feet printing the sand, "I am the dead, and their land." He laughed. A gull cried, "Stay. If your woman is a ghost, she doesn't know it. Neither will you."

1960s, (1963)

“Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them.”
As quoted in Zen to Go (1989) by Jon Winokur, p. 126
Context: Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit.