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55a2a01
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When the immense drugged universe explodes In a cascade of unendurable colour And leaves us gasping naked, This is no more than the ectasy of chaos: Hold fast, with both hands, to that royal love Which alone, as we know certainly, restores Fragmentation into true being. Ecstasy of Chaos
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Robert Graves |
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3cf1b66
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She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers
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Robert Graves |
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fe80137
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I was thinking, "So, I'm Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now."
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claudius
emperor
robert-graves
roman
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Robert Graves |
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9843b04
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Love is universal migraine, A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason. Symptoms of true love Are leanness, jealousy, Laggard dawns; Are omens and nightmares - Listening for a knock, Waiting for a sign: For a touch of her fingers In a darkened room, For a searching look. Take courage, lover!
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Robert Graves |
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30ff60d
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The difference between you and her (whom I to you did once prefer) Is clear enough to settle: She like a diamond shone, but you Shine like an early drop of dew Poised on a red rose petal. The dew-drop carries in its eye Mountain and forest, sea and sky, With every change of weather; Contrariwise, a diamond splits
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Robert Graves |
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ea1422e
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Let all the poison that lurks in the mud, hatch out.
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Robert Graves |
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7f51917
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As I walked out one harvest night About the stroke of One, The Moon attained to her full height Stood beaming like the Sun. She exorcised the ghostly wheat To mute assent in Love's defeat Whose tryst had now begun. The fields lay sick beneath my tread, A tedious owlet cried; The nightingale above my head With this or that replied, Like man and wife who nightly keep Inconsequent debate in sleep As they dream side by side. Your phantom wore t..
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Robert Graves |
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a59734b
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there are two different ways of writing history: one is to persuade men to virtue and the other is to compel men to truth.
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Robert Graves |
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d3c2c5a
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I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against fate
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Robert Graves |
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a9994f1
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Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous form of insanity.
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religion
insanity
fanaticism
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Robert Graves |
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a2c77a5
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Poetry began in the matriarchal age, and derives its magic from the moon, not from the sun. No poet can hope to understand the nature of poetry unless he has had a vision of the Naked King crucified to the lopped oak, and watched the dancers, red-eyed from the acrid smoke of the sacrificial fires, stamping out the measure of the dance, their bodies bent uncouthly forward, with a monotonous chant of "Kill! kill! kill!" and "Blood! blood! blo..
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Robert Graves |
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225e440
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To recommend a monarchy on account of the prosperity it gives the provinces seems to me like recommending that a man should have liberty to treat his children as slaves, if at the same time he treats his slaves with reasonable consideration.
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Robert Graves |
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d84dcbc
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I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as "Claudius the Idiot", or "That Claudius", or "Claudius the Stammerer", or "Clau-Clau-Claudius" or at best as "Poor Uncle Claudius", am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and co..
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Robert Graves |
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9dc355d
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And what thoughts or memories, would you guess, were passing through my mind on this extraordinary occasion? Was I thinking of the Sibyl's prophecy, of the omen of the wolf-cub, of Pollio's advice, or of Briseis's dream? Of my grandfather and liberty? Of my grandfather and liberty? Of my three Imperial predecessors, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, their lives and deaths? Of the great danger I was still in from the conspirators, and from the S..
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Robert Graves |
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9a621bc
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The White Goddess All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean - In scorn of which we sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom we desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo. It was a virtue not to stay, To go our headstrong and heroic way Seeking her out at the volcano's head, Among pack ice, or where the track had faded Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers: W..
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Robert Graves |
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983362a
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Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock Never want for food or fire Always get their heart's desire Jingle pockets full of gold Marry when they're seven years old Every fairy child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep All have houses, each his own Built of brick or granite stone
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Robert Graves |
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979209d
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We are entrusted, you must know, with the revision of the English Dictionary. On the evidence of the Liverpool find of Christmas cards, in which occurred such couplets as: Just to hope the day keeps fine For you and your this Christmas time, and: I hope this stocking's in your line When stars shine bright at Christmas-time I hold that "Christmas-time" was often pronounced "Christmas-tine", and that this is a dialect variant of the older "Ch..
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Robert Graves |
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aa573a6
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The dead may speak the truth only, even when it discredits themselves.
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Robert Graves |
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7053e23
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To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
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Robert Graves |
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f2ebd3f
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A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end.
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Robert Graves |
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12bef1e
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If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of a man who desrves them.
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Robert Graves |
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a1b56c9
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Love is a universal migraine. Blotting out reason.
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Robert Graves |
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b3c94cd
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Take courage, lover! At any hand but hers?
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Robert Graves |
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d352e20
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And what of home -- how goes it, boys, While we die here in stench and noise?
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Robert Graves |