Walter de la Mare Quotes

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.

“Bunches of grapes,” says Timothy;
“Pomegranates pink,” says Elaine;
“A junket of cream and a cranberry tart
For me,” says Jane.

A face peered. All the grey night
In chaos of vacancy shone;
Nought but vast sorrow was there—
The sweet cheat gone.

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.”

‘What is the world, O soldiers?
It is I,
I, this incessant snow,
This northern sky.

So, blind to Someone
I must be.

Poor tired Tim! It’s sad for him
He lags the long bright morning through,
Ever so tired of nothing to do.

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.

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon.

But beauty vanishes; beauty passes;
However rare—rare it be;
And when I crumble, who will remember
This lady of the West Country?

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!

Softly along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.

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.

It's a very odd thing&mdas;
As odd as can be—
That whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.

What lovely things
Thy hand hath made.