What are the wild Waves saying?, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Shall I be gone long?
For ever and a day
To whom there belong?
Ask the stone to say
Ask my song.”
Is it far to go? (1963)
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Cecil Day Lewis 12
English poet 1904–1972Related quotes

“Unlike my subject will I frame my song,
It shall be witty, and it shan't be long.”
Epigram on ("Long") Sir Thomas Robinson

"Contentment".
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

“My song shall spread where ever there are men,
If wit and art will so much guide my pen.”
Cantando espalharei por toda parte,
Se a tanto me ajudar o engenho e arte.
Stanza 2, lines 7–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe, 1655)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto I

As quoted in "What is Don McLean's song 'American Pie' all about?" at The Straight Dope (15 May 1993) http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/908/what-is-don-mcleans-song-american-pie-all-about
Context: As you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie" I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas. You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me. … Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.

Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary

“I guess I'll call it sickness gone,
It's hard to say the meaning of this song.”
Ambulance Blues, referring to the drug related death of bandmate Danny Whitten
Song lyrics, On the Beach (1974)
As quoted in The Ghost-Dance Religion and Wounded Knee (1890) by James Mooney on page 721; it has been sometimes also ascribed to w:Wovoka, which seems misappropriated as Mooney himself mentions Wovoka in the same book from page 765 on.
"It is perhaps the most commonly cited piece of evidence documenting the Native American belief in Mother Earth. […]They rarely place the statement in the context in which Mooney presented it, that is, the history of millenarian movements spawned in part by the pressures Native American felt from the European-Americans' insatiable desire for land […] it is a direct response to 'white' pressures placed on native relationships with the land." From Mother Earth. An American Story. https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo5975950.html