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I say that what one loves is best: The midnight fastness of the heart.

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
Midnight
Loves
Best
Heart

More quotes by Allen Tate

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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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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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William Blake cursed the flesh for a clod, Yet of some of his sayings we Moderns have heard tell: 'The nakedness of woman is the work of God', Or that title--The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
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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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Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.
Allen Tate
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Poets, in their way, are practical men they are interested in results.
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The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
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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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I have felt darkness lead me by the hand Over the hill to greet the singing dawn.
Allen Tate
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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.
Allen Tate
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we know our end A packet of worm-seed, a garden of spent tissues.
Allen Tate
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So the dubbed conceit Played nursery of cheat To clear the I of sleet.
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In an age of abstract experience, fornication Is self-expression, adjunct to Christian euphoria, And whores become delinquents delinquents, patients Patients, wards of society. Whores, by that rule, Are precious.
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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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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.
Allen Tate
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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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Poets are mysterious, but a poet when all is said is not much more mysterious than a banker.
Allen Tate
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Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.
Allen Tate
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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.
Allen Tate