The Numbers
Lyrics, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
“We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.”
“Not till the hours of light return
All we have built do we discern.”
"Morality" (1852), lines 7-12
Context: With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day and wish’t were done.
Not till the hours of light return
All we have built do we discern.
Talks in Saanen (1974), p. 71
1970s
Context: It is utterly and irrevocably possible to empty all hurts and, therefore, to love, to have compassion. To have compassion means to have passion for all things, not just between two people, but for all human beings, for all things of the earth, the animals, the trees, everything the earth contains. When we have such compassion we will not despoil the earth as we are doing now, and we will have no wars.
"The Sea Close By" in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970)
“Without us, Earth will abide and endure; without her, however, we could not even be.”
Source: The World Without Us
“We do not pass through the same door twice
Or return to the door through which we did not pass”
Ode to the Spirit of Earth in Autumn, st. 14.
Essais (1595), Book I
