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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.

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
Long
Staring
Soundless
Would
Fingers
Deftly
Despair
Wink
Across
Crawl
Seen
Mild
Eyes
Fiery
Eye
Stare
Fall
Twilight

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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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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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Other psychological theories say a good deal about compensation.
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Punctilious abyss, the yawn of space Come once a day to suffocate the sight.
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Death's long anabasis.
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The torrent of the reaching shade Broke shadow into all its parts, What then had been of shadow made Found exigence in fits and starts.
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We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.
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Narcissism and the Confederate dead cannot be connected logically, or even historically even were the connection an historical fact, they would not stand connected as art, for no one experiences raw history.
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Last night I fled until I came To streets where leaking casements dripped Stale lamplight from the corpse of flame A nervous window bled.
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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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There's precious little to say between day and dark, Perhaps a few words on the implacable will Of time sailing like a magic barque Or something as fine for the amenities.
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I say that what one loves is best: The midnight fastness of the heart.
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Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.
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Struck in the wet mire Four thousand leagues from the ninth buried city I thought of Troy, what we had built her for.
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Men cannot live forever But they must die forever.
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Poets, in their way, are practical men they are interested in results.
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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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we know our end A packet of worm-seed, a garden of spent tissues.
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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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