Top 15 Geoffrey Hill Quotes

English poet (1932–2016)

Sir Geoffrey William Hill (18 June 1932 - 30 June 2016) was an English poet and is Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford.

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Birth Name: Geoffrey William Hill

Alternative Names: Sir Geoffrey William Hill

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Thus I grind to conclusion.

September fattens on vines. Roses
flake from the wall. The smoke
of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.

Shakespeare
clearly heard many voices. No secret:
voicing means hearing, at a price a gift

I wish I understood myself
more clearly or less well.

I write
to astonish myself

Primroses; salutations; the miry skull
of a half-eaten ram; vicious wounds in earth
opening. What seraphs are afoot.

Or say it is Pentecost: the hawthorn-tree,
set with coagulate magnified flowers of may,
blooms in a haze of light; old chalk-pits brim
with seminal verdue from the roots of time. Landscape is like revelation; it is both
singular crystal and the remotest things.
Cloud-shadows of seasons revisit the earth,
odourless myrrh bourne by the wandering kings.

"One cannot lose what one has not possessed."
So much for that abrasive gem.
I can lose what I want. I want you.

The years will not
answer for what they have done, that much is
certain. There is no shaking them, we
might have foreseen this but refused.

I have learned one thing: not to look down
Too much upon the damned.

In memory of those things these words were born.

Charles Péguy, stubborn rancours and mishaps and all, is one of the great souls, one of the great prophetic intelligences of the 20th century.I offer my poem as my homage to the triumph of his 'defeat'.

The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy,

Did Péguy kill Juarés? Did he incite

An achieved poem is always beautiful in its own way, though such a way will many times strike people as harsh and repellent.