Walter de la Mare Quotes

• Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon.
• A harvest mouse goes scampering by, With silver claws and silver eye; And moveless fish in the water gleam, By silver reeds in a silver stream.
• Here lies a most beautiful lady, Light of step and heart was she; I think she was the most beautiful lady That ever was in the West Country.
• But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; However rare-rare it be; And when I crumble, who will remember This lady of the West Country?
• Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour-let no night Seal thy sense in deathly slumber Till to delight Thou hast paid thy utmost blessing.
• 'Who knocks?' 'I, who was beautiful, Beyond all dreams to restore, I from the roots of the dark thorn am hither, And knock on the door.'
• A face peered. All the grey night In chaos of vacancy shone; Nought but vast sorrow was there- The sweet cheat gone.
• Do diddle di do, Poor Jim Jay Got stuck fast In Yesterday.
• It's a very odd thing&mdas; As odd as can be- That whatever Miss T. eats Turns into Miss T.
• Three jolly huntsmen, In coats of red, Rode their horses Up to bed.
• Bang! Now the animal Is dead and dumb and done. Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again, Eat or sleep or drink again, oh, what fun!
• Wonderful lovely there she sat, Singing the night away, All in the solitudinous sea Of that there lonely bay.
• For beauty with sorrow Is a burden hard to be borne: The evening light on the foam, and the swans, there; That music, remote, forlorn.
• Some one came knocking At my wee, small door; Some one came knocking, I'm sure-sure-sure.
• Softly along the road of evening, In a twilight dim with rose, Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.
• His are the quiet steeps of dreamland, The waters of no-more-pain; His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars, 'Rest, rest, and rest again.'
• We wake and whisper awhile, But, the day gone by, Silence and sleep like fields Of amaranth lie.
• Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose.
• Old Rover in his moss-greened house Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse.
• Dobbin at manger pulls his hay: Gone is another summer's day.
• All but blind In his chambered hole Gropes for worms The four-clawed Mole.
• So, blind to Someone I must be.
• What lovely things Thy hand hath made.
• 'Bunches of grapes,' says Timothy; 'Pomegranates pink,' says Elaine; 'A junket of cream and a cranberry tart For me,' says Jane.
• 'A bumpity ride in a wagon of hay'
• Poor tired Tim! It's sad for him He lags the long bright morning through, Ever so tired of nothing to do.
• 'What is the world, O soldiers? It is I, I, this incessant snow, This northern sky.
• 'Is anybody there?' said the Traveler, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence chomped the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor.
• 'Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,' he said.
• Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.
• Who said 'Peacock Pie'? The old king to the sparrow: Who said 'Crops are ripe'? Rust to the harrow. Who said, 'Ay, mum's the word'? Sexton to willow. Who said, 'Green dusk for dream?' Moss for a pillow. Who said, 'All Time's delight Hath she for narrow bed; Life's troubled bubble broken'?- That's what I said.
• The delicate, invisible web you wove The inexplicable mystery of sound.
• Or when the lawn Is pressed by unseen feet, and ghosts return Gently at twilight, gently go at dawn, The sad intangible who grieve and yearn...

walter de la mare