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Collected Poems, 1917-1982 QUOTES

Collected Poems, 1917-1982 QUOTES

1 " Around, around the sun we go:
The moon goes round the earth.
We do not die of death:
We die of vertigo. "

― Archibald MacLeish , Collected Poems, 1917-1982

2 " And here face down beneath the sun
And here upon earth's noonward height
To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night "

― Archibald MacLeish , Collected Poems, 1917-1982

3 " A poem should not mean
But be. "

― Archibald MacLeish , Collected Poems, 1917-1982

4 " Ars Poetica

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be. "

― Archibald MacLeish , Collected Poems, 1917-1982