Quote

Long live the weeds that overwhelm My narrow vegetable realm! The bitter rock, the barren soil That force the son of man to toil All things unholy, marred by curse, The ugly of the universe.

Theodore Roethke

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Theodore Roethke
Age: 55 †
Born: 1908
Born: May 25
Died: 1963
Died: August 1
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Saginaw
Michigan
Universe
Realms
Weeds
Force
Curse
Barren
Live
Soil
Toil
Long
Bitter
Vegetables
Things
Ugly
Realm
Marred
Men
Son
Bitterness
Unholy
Rock
Weed
Overwhelm
Rocks
Narrow
Vegetable

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still calledThe flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollowsAnd love, love sang toward.
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So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place and time, Another condition.
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But when I breath with the birds, The spirit of wrath becomes the spirit of blessings, And the dead begin from their dark to sing in my sleep.
Theodore Roethke
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I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swamplandDisturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,By pulling off flesh from the living planetAs if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.
Theodore Roethke
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Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall: The word outleaps the world, and light is all.
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I came where the river Ran over stones My ears knew An early joy. And all the waters Of all the streams Sang in my veins That summer day.
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
Theodore Roethke
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A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion.
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I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
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Time marks us while we are marking time.
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
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I came to love, I came into my own.
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What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke
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The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!
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By daily dying, I have come to be.
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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
Theodore Roethke