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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

All but blind
In his chambered hole
Gropes for worms
The four-clawed Mole.

“Bunches of grapes,” says Timothy;
“Pomegranates pink,” says Elaine;
“A junket of cream and a cranberry tart
For me,” says Jane.

A face peered. All the grey night
In chaos of vacancy shone;
Nought but vast sorrow was there—
The sweet cheat gone.

Softly along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.

‘Who knocks?’ ‘I, who was beautiful,
Beyond all dreams to restore,
I from the roots of the dark thorn am hither,
And knock on the door.’

Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Some one came knocking,
I’m sure—sure—sure.

It's a very odd thing—
As odd as can be—
That whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.

Do diddle di do,
Poor Jim Jay
Got stuck fast
In Yesterday.

Without imagination of the one kind or the other, mortal existence is indeed a dreary and prosaic business. . . . Illumined by the imagination, our life - whatever its defeats and despairs - is a never-ending, unforeseen strangeness and adventure and mystery.

"Is anybody there?" said the Traveler,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor.

The Listeners (1912)

“A bumpity ride in a wagon of hay”

So, blind to Someone
I must be.

Wide are the meadows of night
And daisies are shining there,
Tossing their lovely dews,
Lustrous and fair;
And through these sweet fields go,
Wanderers amid the stars—
Venus, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune,
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars.

Attribution

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