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Walter de la Mare Quotes

1873–1956 England

Walter John de la Mare, OM, CH (April 25, 1873 – June 22, 1956) was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist. Many of his poems and stories were for children, though he believed that there is no such thing as a good poem for children, only a good poem that children can understand.

England
Novelists
Poets
Short story writers

Also known as: De la Mare, Walter

Random Walter de la Mare quote

33 quotes

Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog.

Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour—let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou hast paid thy utmost blessing.

Experience seems to be like the shining of a bright lantern. It suddenly makes clear in the mind what was already there perhaps, but dim.

Come Hither (1923)

Old Rover in his moss-greened house
Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse.

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

Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:
Gone is another summer’s day.

Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

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

We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.

Wonderful lovely there she sat,
Singing the night away,
All in the solitudinous sea
Of that there lonely bay.

Three jolly huntsmen,
In coats of red,
Rode their horses
Up to bed.

And how she’d open her green eyes,
As if in some immense surprise

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

Here lies a most beautiful lady,
Light of step and heart was she;
I think she was the most beautiful lady
That ever was in the West Country.

What lovely things
Thy hand hath made.

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

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.

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!

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.”

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Walter de la Mare (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.