Quote

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.

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
Sound
Gain
Magnolia
Death
Six
Magnolias
Gains
Tomb
Roots
Tombs
Ground
Measured
Intellectual
Root
Loss
Round
Feet
Rounds
Weedy

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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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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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Swimmer of noonday, lean for the perfect dive To the dead Mother's face, whose subtile down You had not seen take amber light alive.
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Peering, I heard the hooves come down the hill. The posse passed, twelve horse the leader's face Was worn as limestone on an ancient sill.
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Venus knows country matters: country knows Venus: For Love, Dione's boy, was born on the farm.
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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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I believe the term modulation denotes in music the uninterrupted shift from one key to another: I do not know the term for change of rhythm without change of measure.
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The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
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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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Row after row with strict impunity The headstones yield their names to the element, The wind whirrs without recollection.
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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 twilight is long fingers and black hair.
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I thought I heard the dark pounding its head On a rock, crying: Who are the dead?
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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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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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POET If not in a place, where are the People weeping? LIBERAL They creep weeping in the face, not place. POET Is it something with which we may cope The weeping, the creeping, the peepee-ing, the peeping?
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There is a calm for you where men and women Unroll the chill precision of moving feet.
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Other psychological theories say a good deal about compensation.
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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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Let us begin to understand the argument. There is a solution to everything: Science.
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