My secrets cry aloud. I have no need for tongue. My heart k… - Theodore Roethke

" "
My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
An epic of the eyes
My love, with no disguise.

My truths are all foreknown,
This anguish self-revealed.
I’m naked to the bone,
With nakedness my shield.
Myself is what I wear:
I keep the spirit spare.

The anger will endure,
The deed will speak the truth
In language strict and pure.
I stop the lying mouth:
Rage warps my clearest cry
To witless agony.

Theodore Roethke

Sources available for members. Sign up free to see where this quote comes from

English

Collect this quote

About Theodore Roethke

Theodore Huebner Roethke (IPA: ['ɹ ɛ t.ki]; RET-key) (25 May 1908 – 1 August 1963) was an American poet who published several volumes of poetry characterized by their rhythm and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.

Biography information from Wikiquote

All quotes from Theodore Roethke Similar Quotes by other Originators

Originators like Theodore Roethke:

Denise Levertov William Butler Yeats Emily Dickinson Robert Frost Richard Wilbur

Additional quotes by Theodore Roethke

I shook the softening chalk of my bones,
Saying, Snail, snail, glister me forward,
Bird, soft-sigh me home,
Worm, be with me.
This is my hard time.

I've recovered my tenderness by long looking;
I'm a Socrates of small fury.
The waves bends with the fish. I'm taught
As water teaches stone. Believe me, extremest oriole,
I can hear light on a dry day.
The world is where we fling it; I'm leaving where I am.

Goodbye, goodbye, old stones, the time-order is going,
I have married my hands to perpetual agitation,
I run, I run to the whistle of money.

My secrets cry aloud. I have no need for tongue. My heart keeps open house, My doors are widely swung. An epic of the eyes My love, with no disguise.… - Theodore Roethke

About Theodore Roethke

Additional quotes by Theodore Roethke