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I have felt darkness lead me by the hand Over the hill to greet the singing dawn.

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
Felt
Greet
Hands
Hill
Hills
Dawn
Lead
Singing
Darkness
Hand

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How does one happen to write a poem: where does it come from? That is the question asked by the psychologists or the geneticists of poetry.
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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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Let us begin to understand the argument. There is a solution to everything: Science.
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So face with calm that heritage And earn contempt before the age.
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A poem may be an instance of morality, of social conditions, of psychological history it may instance all its qualities, but never one of them alone, nor any two or three never less than all.
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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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What is the flesh and blood compounded ofBut a few moments in the life of time?This prowling of the cells, litigious love,Wears the long claw of flesh-arguing crime.
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I had kept opaque Down deeper than the canyons undersea The sullen spectrum of a buried lake Nobody saw not seen even by me.
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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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We are afraid that we have not lived. We are not afraid of dying.
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Among friends one has the privilege of saying nothing the civility consists in the assumption that one's silence will be civilly understood. I can imagine a small gathering of friends who say nothing all evening: they recoil from saying anything that the others don't want to hear and their silence would be the subtlest courtesy.
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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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My darling boy whom I shall never know, My son, I love you in my deepest fears.
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Row after row with strict impunity The headstones yield their names to the element, The wind whirrs without recollection.
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We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.
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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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I say that what one loves is best: The midnight fastness of the heart.
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Poets, in their way, are practical men they are interested in results.
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Walk in this faithless grass with studious tread, Lest mice, weasels, germane beasts, too soon The tall hat and eyes, the fierce feet, for dead Descry, and fix you prone in their revelling moon.
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The twilight is long fingers and black hair.
Allen Tate