“The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.”
"I Think of Those Who Were Truly Great"
Poems (1933)
Context: Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,
See how these names are fêted in the waving grass
And by the streamers of the white cloud
And whispers of the wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.
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Stephen Spender 76
English poet and man of letters 1909–1995Related quotes
“The head is borne towards the heavens and has two lights, as it were the sun and moon.”
As quoted by J. J. McEvoy, The philosophy of Robert Grosseteste (1982) p. 372.
A Man From Lebanon: Nineteen Centuries Afterward
Jesus, The Son of Man (1928)
Context: Master, Master Poet,
Master of words sung and spoken,
They have builded temples to house your name,
And upon every height they have raised your cross,
A sign and a symbol to guide their wayward feet,
But not unto your joy.
Your joy is a hill beyond their vision,
And it does not comfort them.
They would honour the man unknown to them.
And what consolation is there in a man like themselves, a man whose
kindliness is like their own kindliness,
A god whose love is like their own love,
And whose mercy is in their own mercy?
They honour not the man, the living man,
The first man who opened His eyes and gazed at the sun
With eyelids unquivering.
Nay, they do not know Him, and they would not be like Him.
March 10, 1841
Journals (1838-1859)
“The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.”
Source: Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 1 (p. 11)
“The people who guard the rainbow don't like those who get in the way of the sun.”
Source: Going Postal
Mary Magdalen (Thirty years later): On the Resurrection of the Spirit
Jesus, The Son of Man (1928)
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XV Astronomy
Context: The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united with them. And any one standing on the moon, when it and the sun are both beneath us, would see this our earth and the element of water upon it just as we see the moon, and the earth would light it as it lights us.
