“The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.”
Source: Leaves of Grass
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Walt Whitman 181
American poet, essayist and journalist 1819–1892Related quotes
“Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.”
Address at Milton Academy, Massachusetts (17 May 1935)
1930s
Variant: Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
“Some may have blamed you that you took away
The verses that could move them on the day”
Reconciliation http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1568/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
Context: Some may have blamed you that you took away
The verses that could move them on the day
When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind
With lightning, you went from me, and I could find
Nothing to make a song about but kings,
Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things
That were like memories of you--but now
We'll out, for the world lives as long ago;
And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit,
Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.
But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,
My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.
“Dialectics and reflection play the same role for the philosopher as does verse for the poet.”
Source: Nietzsche et la métaphore (1972), p. 13
Quoted in "Fundamentals of India are strong: Indra Nooyi".
“Anyone may be an honorable man, and yet write verse badly.”
On peut être honnête homme et faire mal des vers.
Act IV, sc. i
Le Misanthrope (1666)
1963, Speech at Amherst College
Context: The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.
Dedication (1960)
Context: Today is for my cause a day of days.
And his be poetry's old-fashioned praise
Who was the first to think of such a thing.
This verse that in acknowledgement I bring
Goes back to the beginning of the end
Of what had been for centuries the trend;
A turning point in modern history.