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Collected Poems

Book by William Blake · 12 quotes · Poetry, Heart, Poem

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Collected Poems Quotes

“You know, without my telling you, how sometimes a word or name eludes you, and you seek it through running ghosts of shadow -- leaping at it, lying in wait for it to spring upon it, spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound: until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest, you hear it, see it flash among the branches, and scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it.”

IfsKnowsSometimesRunningLyingNamesWaitingSoundKnowingSpringShadowGhostForestsBranchesFlashPhantomsSnaresEludeElude You
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“There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pool singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself when she woke at dawn Would scarcely know that we were gone.”

IfsKnowsMindWarDoneCareLastsNightSoundWhiteGoneFireTreeMankindSpringSingingLowsBirdRainSmellDawnPoolFenceWireFrogsWhimRobinsPlumsWhistling
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“This is newness: every little tawdry Obstacle glass-wrapped and peculiar, Glinting and clinking in a saint's falsetto. Only you Don't know what to make of the sudden slippiness, The blind, white, awful, inaccessible slant. There's no getting up it by the words you know. No getting up by elephant or wheel or shoe. We have only come to look. You are too new To want the world in a glass hat.”

KnowsWorldWantLooksLittlesWhiteBlindShoesSaintGlassesObstaclesAwfulWheelsHatsPeculiarElephantsNewnessInaccessibleFalsetto
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“The FlowersAll the names I know from nurse:Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,And the Lady Hollyhock.Fairy places, fairy things,Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,Tiny trees for tiny dames-These must all be fairy names!Tiny woods below whose boughsShady fairies weave a house;Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,Where the braver fairies climb!Fair are grown-up people's trees,But the fairest woods are these;Where, if I were not so tall,I should live for good and all”

PeopleIfsKnowsShouldHouseNamesTreeFairsWingsRoseWoodsTinyFairyClimbsTallNurseBeesButtonsGardenerPursesShepherdsBachelorsDamesThymeGartersTree Tops
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