Quote

Now remember courage, go to the door,Open it and see whether coiled on the bedOr cringing by the wall, a savage beastMaybe with golden hair, with deep eyesLike a bearded spider on a sunlit floorWill snarl-and man can never be alone.

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
Whether
Door
Snarl
Remember
Doors
Sunlit
Never
Deep
Bearded
Men
Courage
Spider
Wall
Savage
Hair
Spiders
Open
Savages
Cringing
Alone
Golden
Coiled

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But in our age the appeal to authority is weak, and I am of my age.
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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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I am not ridiculing verbal mechanisms, dreams, or repressions as origins of poetry all three of them and more besides may have a great deal to do with it.
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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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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.
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Poets are mysterious, but a poet when all is said is not much more mysterious than a banker.
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All the sea-gods are dead. You, Venus, come home To your salt maidenhead.
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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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At twelve I was determined to shoot only For honor at twenty not to shoot at all I know at thirty-three that one must shoot As often as one gets the rare chance - In killing there is more than commentary.
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The dreary flies, lazy and casual, Stick to the ceiling, buzz along the wall. O heart, the spider shuffles from the mould Weaving, between the pinks and grapes, his pall.
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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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So the dubbed conceit Played nursery of cheat To clear the I of sleet.
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Ah, Christ, I love you rings to the wild sky And I must think a little of the past: When I was ten I told a stinking lie That got a black boy whipped.
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Men cannot live forever But they must die forever.
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So face with calm that heritage And earn contempt before the age.
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And I have seen long fingers that would stare With fiery eyes, and then the eyes would crawl Deftly across the counterpane and fall Soundless, with a wink of mild despair.
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I say that what one loves is best: The midnight fastness of the heart.
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The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
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Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.
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What was I saying? An Egyptian king Once touched long fingers, which are not anything.
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