“Pale, cold torchlight.
Slender shadows from a row of tall bamboo
Flicker dimly on the coffin of a child
Carried through the chilling dew.
A sobbing old woman lays bare her heart.
I stare at the countless stars in silence, asking myself:
Since when has my soul been destroyed?
And might that dark coffin of a child
Not contain my corpse as well?
Vaguely, from the immensity of space,
I heard a star cast a soft reply.”

— Chế Lan Viên

"The Funeral Procession", as quoted in Understanding Vietnam by Neil Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), p. 164

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Chế Lan Viên 9

Vietnamese writer 1920–1989

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"Wallace Stevens", p. 25
The Bread of Truth (1963)

“I once loved a woman, a child I am told
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

“And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart [ i carry it in my heart ]”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Variant: i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
Source: Selected Poems

“People think about who they are in the stillest hour of the night. I carry this thought, the child's
mystery and terror of this thought, I feel this immensity in my soul every second of my life.”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

“It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

Senlin: A Biography (1918)

“Star of my heart, I follow from afar.”

Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) American poet

Star Of My Heart (1913)
Context: Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed.
O lead me to Jehovah's child
Across this dreamland lone and wild,
Then will I speak this prayer unsaid,
And kiss his little haloed head—
"My star and I, we love thee, little child."

“When I arrived at the place of the execution, the gunmen fired into a pit the size of several rooms. They fired from small submachine guns. As I arrived, I saw a Jewish woman and a small child in her arms in the pit. I wanted to pull out the child, but then a bullet smashed the skull of the child. My driver wiped brain particles from my leather coat.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

CBC report (2000)

“We all know the beautiful hymn commencing with the cheerful line: "Hark from the tombs, a doleful sound." Nothing could have been more appropriate for children. It is well to put a coffin where it can be seen from the cradle. When a mother nurses her child, an open grave should be at her feet. This would tend to make the babe serious, reflective, religious and miserable.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)

“The word must be heard in silence; there must be darkness to see the stars.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 8, "The Children of the Open Sea" (Ged)

“Apart from my heart, I feel everything grows old in me. Even my heart has something artificial. It has been sewn by the dancers in a soft, pink satin purse like their shoes.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote in Degas' letter to the sculptor Paul-Albert Bartolomé, January 1886; as cited in 'Performing Fine Arts: Dance as a Source of Inspiration in Impressionism, by Johannis Tsoumas http://rupkatha.com/dance-in-impressionism/
1876 - 1895

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Chế Lan Viên 9

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