“I have lit my treasured candles,
one by one, to hallow this night.”
Poem without a Hero (1963)
Context: I have lit my treasured candles,
one by one, to hallow this night.
With you, who do not come,
I wait the birth of the year.
Dear God!
the flame has drowned in crystal,
and the wine, like poison, burns
Old malice bites the air,
old ravings rave again,
though the hour has not yet struck.
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Anna Akhmatova 99
Russian modernist poet 1889–1966Related quotes
“Everybody is a candle, true. But not everybody is lit.”
The Eight Human Talents (2001)
From The Teaching of Buddha http://www.bdk.or.jp/english/about/popularization/buddhist-scriptures.html, by Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (Society for the Promotion of Buddhism), Pg 132. It is a paraphrased version of Section 10 of the Sutra of Forty-two Sections
Unclassified
“Now we have lit a candle to the power
Of atoms; now we know we're heirs of light
Itself…”
Sestina of the Space Rocket (1953)
“For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura -- and so goodbye….”
Tom, Scene Seven
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Context: Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out! — for nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles Laura — and so goodbye…
Inner Freedom: A Spiritual Journey for Prison Inmates (2008)
Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.
Misattributed
Variant: My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.
Source: Boy: Tales of Childhood
Misattributed
Source: Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.
