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I'll dig in into my days, having come here to live, not to visit. Grey is the price of neighboring with eagles, of knowing a mountain's vast presence, seen or unseen.

Denise Levertov

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Denise Levertov
Age: 74 †
Born: 1923
Born: October 24
Died: 1997
Died: December 20
Poet
Translator
Writer
Ilford
London
Priscilla D Levertoff
Priscilla Denise Levertoff
Priscilla Denise Levertov
Mountain
Neighboring
Days
Eagles
Seen
Grey
Knowing
Unseen
Women
Visit
Vast
Home
Presence
Live
Price
Come

More quotes by Denise Levertov

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The vast silence of Buddha overtakes and overrules the oncoming roar of tragic life that fills alleys and avenues it blocks the way of pedicabs, police, convoys.
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But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.
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Each part of speech a spark awaiting redemption, each a virtue, a power in abeyance.
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Mountain, mountain, mountain, marking time. Each nameless, wall beyond wall, wavering redefinition of horizon.
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blue bead on the wick, there's that in me that burns and chills, blackening my heart with its soot, I think sometimes not Apollo heard me but a different god.
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The world is not with us enough. O taste and see.
Denise Levertov
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Breathe the sweetness that hovers in August.
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I watch the clouds as I see them in pomp advancing, pursuing the fallen sun.
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There is no savor more sweet, more salt than to be glad to be what, woman, and who, myself, I am.
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slowly the pale dew-beads of light lapped up from flowers can thicken, darken to gold: honey of the human.
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One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.
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Beespittle, droppings, hairs of beefur: all become honey. Virulent micro-organisms cannot survive in honey.
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Wear scarlet! Tear the green lemons off the tree! I don't want to forget who I am, what has burned in me, and hang limp and clean, an empty dress -
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In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.
Denise Levertov
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At Delphi I prayed to Apollo that he maintain in me the flame of the poem and I drank of the brackish spring there.
Denise Levertov
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A poet articulating the dreads and horrors of our time is necessary in order to make readers understand what is happening, really understand it, not just know about it but feel it: and should be accompanied by a willingness on the part of those who write it to take additional action towards stopping the great miseries which they record.
Denise Levertov
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An absolute patience. Trees stand up to their knees in fog. The fog slowly flows uphill. White cobwebs, the grass leaning where deer have looked for apples. The woods from brook to where the top of the hill looks over the fog, send up not one bird. So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself, a breathing too quiet to hear.
Denise Levertov
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The artist must create himself or be born again.
Denise Levertov
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my pleasure was in the strength of my back, in my noble shoulders, the cool smooth flesh cylinders of my arms.
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Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock.
Denise Levertov