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But in our age the appeal to authority is weak, and I am of my age.

Allen Tate

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Allen Tate
Age: 79 †
Born: 1899
Born: November 19
Died: 1979
Died: February 9
Author
Literary Critic
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Winchester
Kentucky
John Orley Allen Tate
Glitter
Appeal
Appeals
Weak
Authority
Age

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Our loss put six feet under ground Is measured by the magnolia's root Our gain's the intellectual sound Of death's feet round a weedy tomb.
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But we shall not know the world by looking at it we know it by looking at the hovering fly.
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For often at Church I've seen the stained high glass Pour out the Virgin and Saints, twist and untwist The mortal youth of Christ astride an ass.
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The Spring I seek is in a new face only.
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The poet is he who fights on the passionate Side and whoever loses he wins when he Is defeated it is hard to say who wins.
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The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
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Let us lie down once more by the breathing side Of Ocean, where our live forefathers sleep As if the Known Sea still were a month wide-- Atlantis howls but is no longer steep!
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Men expect too much, do too little, Put the contraption before the accomplishment, Lack skill of the interior mind To fashion dignity with shapes of air. Luxury, yes but not elegance!
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There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.
Allen Tate
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Culture is the study of perfection, and the constant effort to achieve it.
Allen Tate
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So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is a failure in plain life, makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.
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The dusk runs down the lane driven like hail Far off a precise whistle is escheat To the dark and then the towering weak and pale.
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Therefore with idle hands and head I sit In late December before the fire's daze Punished by crimes of which I would be quit.
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So face with calm that heritage And earn contempt before the age.
Allen Tate
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The idiot greens the meadow with his eyes, The meadow creeps implacable and still A dog barks, the hammock swings, he lies. One two three the cows bulge on the hill.
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I say that what one loves is best: The midnight fastness of the heart.
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The day's at end and there's nowhere to go, Draw to the fire, even this fire is dying Get up and once again politely lying Invite the ladies toward the mistletoe.
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What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.
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I thought I heard the dark pounding its head On a rock, crying: Who are the dead?
Allen Tate
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Dark accurate plunger down the successive knell Of arch on arch, where ogives burst a red Reverberance of hail upon the dead Thunder like an exploding crucible!
Allen Tate