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The twilight is long fingers and black hair.

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
Twilight
Fingers
Hair
Black
Long

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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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Row after row with strict impunity The headstones yield their names to the element, The wind whirrs without recollection.
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The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
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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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Antiquity breached mortality with myths. Narcissus is vocabulary. Hermes decorates A cornice on the Third National Bank.
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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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Poets, in their way, are practical men they are interested in results.
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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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Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally, but reason does not relieve us of them.
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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 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 have felt darkness lead me by the hand Over the hill to greet the singing dawn.
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For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.
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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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Yevgeny Yevtushenko is a ham actor, not a poet.
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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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The innocent mansion of a panther's heart!
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So face with calm that heritage And earn contempt before the age.
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Men cannot live forever But they must die forever.
Allen Tate