Walter De La Mare Quotes

They say death's a going to bed; I doubt it; but anyhow life's a long undressing. We came in puling and naked, and every stitch must come off before we get out again. We must stand on our feet in all our Rabelaisian nakedness, and watch the world fade.

Fancies were all very well for a change, but must be only occasional guests in a world devoted to reality.

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

Lawford had soundlessly stolen a pace or two nearer, and by stopping forward he could, each in turn, scrutinize the little intent company sitting over his story around the lamp at the further end of the table; squatting like little children with their twigs and pins, fishing for wonders on the brink of the unknown.

Too late for fruit, too soon for flowers.

In these days of faith-cures, and hypnotism, and telepathy, and subliminalities – why, the simple old world grows very confusing. But rarely, very rarely novel.

The time's gone by for sentiment and all that foolery. Mercy's all very well but after all it's justice that clinches the bargain.

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

All day long the door of the sub-conscious remains just ajar; we slip through to the other side, and return again, as easily and secretly as a cat.

That's why I've just gone on … collecting this particular kind of stuff – what you might call riff-raff. There's not a book here, Lawford, that hasn't at least a glimmer of the real thing in it – just Life, seen through a living eye, and felt. As for literature, and style, and all that gallimaufry, don't fear for them if your author has the ghost of a hint of genius in his making.

Poor sleepers should endeavor to compose themselves. Tampering with empty space, stirring up echoes in pitch-black pits of darkness is scarcely sedative.
("Out Of The Deep")

Pausing on the threshold, he looked in, conscious not so much of the few familiar sticks of furniture - the trucklebed, the worn strip of Brussels carpet, the chipped blue-banded ewer and basin, the framed illuminated texts on the walls - as of a perfect hive of abhorrent memories.
That high cupboard in the corner, from which certain bodiless shapes had been wont to issue and stoop at him cowering out of his dreams; the crab-patterned paper that came alive as you stared; the window cold with menacing stars; the mouseholes, the rusty grate - trumpet of every wind that blows - these objects at once lustily shouted at him in their own original tongues.
("Out Of The Deep")

Now that cleverness was the fashion most people were clever – even perfect fools; and cleverness after all was often only a bore: all head and no body.

When indeed you positively press your face, so to speak, against the crystalline window of your eyes, your mind is apt to become a perfect vacuum.
("Out Of The Deep")

Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour

An hour's terror is better than a lifetime of timidity.

Acquaintances, after all, are little else than a bad habit.

The Night-Swans
by Walter De la Mare

'Tis silence on the enchanted lake,
And silence in the air serene,
Save for the beating of her heart,
The lovely-eyed Evangeline.

She sings across the waters clear
And dark with trees and stars between,
The notes her fairy godmother
Taught her, the child Evangeline.

As might the unrippled pool reply,
Faltering an answer far and sweet,
Three swans as white as mountain snow
Swim mantling to her feet.

And still upon the lake they stay,
Their eyes black stars in all their snow,
And softly, in the glassy pool,
Their feet beat darkly to and fro.

She rides upon her little boat,
Her swans swim through the starry sheen,
Rowing her into Fairyland--
The lovely-eyed Evangeline.

'Tis silence on the enchanted lake,
And silence in the air serene;
Voices shall call in vain again
On earth the child Evangeline.

'Evangeline! Evangeline!'
Upstairs, downstairs, all in vain.
Her room is dim; her flowers faded;
She answers not again.

Who said, 'All Time's delight
Hath she for narrow bed;
Life's troubled bubble broken'?
That's what I said.

It was a pity thoughts always ran the easiest way, like water in old ditches.

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

It is very seldom that one encounters what would appear to be sheer unadulterated evil in a human face; an evil, I mean, active, deliberate, deadly, dangerous. Folly, heedlessness, vanity, pride, craft, meanness, stupidity - yes. But even Iagos in this world are few, and devilry is as rare as witchcraft. ("Bad Company")

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

I know well that only the rarest kind of best can be good enough for the young.

Hi! handsome hunting man
Fire your little gun.
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!

Away

There is no sorrow
Time heals never;
No loss, betrayal,
Beyond repair.
Balm for the soul, then,
Though grave shall sever
Lover from loved
And all they share.
See the sweet sun shines
The shower is over;
Flowers preen their beauty,
The day how fair!
Brood not too closely
On love, on duty;
Friends long forgotten
May wait you where
Life with death
Brings all to an issue;
None will long mourn for you,
Pray for you, miss you,
Your place left vacant,
You not there.

Lear, Macbeth. Mercutio – they live on their own as it were. The newspapers are full of them, if we were only the Shakespeares to see it. Have you ever been in a Police Court? Have you ever watched tradesmen behind their counters? My soul, the secrets walking in the streets! You jostle them at every corner. There's a Polonius in every first-class railway carriage, and as many Juliets as there are boarding-schools. ... How inexhaustibly rich everything is, if you only stick to life.

And some win peace who spend
The skill of words to sweeten despair
Of finding consolation where
Life has but one dark end.

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

It was to be a day of queer experiences. He had never realized with how many miracles mere everyday life is besieged.

Oh, pity the poor glutton Whose troubles all begin In struggling on and on to turn What's out into what's in.

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

Once a man strays out of the common herd, he's more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels.

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

Is there anybody there? said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door.

After all, what is man but a hoard of ghosts? Oaks, that were acorns, that were oaks ...

As soon as they're out of your sight, you are out of their mind.

We are *all* we are, and all in a sense we care to dream we are. And for that matter, anything outlandish, bizarre, is a godsend in this rather stodgy life. It is after all just what the old boy said – it's only the impossible that's credible; whatever credible may mean...

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.

A poor old Widow in her weeds
Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;
Not too shallow, and not too deep,
And down came April -- drip -- drip -- drip.
Up shone May, like gold, and soon
Green as an arbour grew leafy June.
And now all summer she sits and sews
Where willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,
Teasle and pansy, meadowsweet,
Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit;
Brown bee orchis, and Peals of Bells;
Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells;
Like Oberon's meadows her garden is
Drowsy from dawn to dusk with bees.
Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,
And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes;
And all she has is all she needs --
A poor Old Widow in her weeds.