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Stephen Spender Quotes

1909–1995 England

Stephen Spender (February 28, 1909 – July 16, 1995) was an English poet and essayist who focused on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work.

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Random Stephen Spender quote

64 quotes

My words like eyes that flinch from light, refuse
And shut upon obscurity; my acts
Cast to their opposites by impatient violence
Break up the sequent path; they fly
On a circumference to avoid the centre.

The Still Centre (1939)

The iron arc of the avoiding journey
Curves back upon my weakness at the end;
Whether the faint light spark against my face
Or in the dark my sight hide from my sight,
Centre and circumference are both my weakness.

The Still Centre (1939)

History has tongues
Has angels has guns — has saved has praised —
Today proclaims
Achievements of her exiles long returned
Now no more rootless, for whom her printed page
Glazes their bruised waste years in one
Balancing present sky.

The Still Centre (1939)

Across this dazzling
Mediterranean
August morning
The dolphins write such
Ideograms:
With power to wake
Me prisoned in
My human speech
They sign: 'I AM!'

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Stephen Spender (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.