Elinor Wylie Quotes
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When strawberries go begging, and the sleek Blue plums lie open to the blackbird’s beak, We shall live well - we shall live very well.
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When the world turns completely upside down You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore; We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town, You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color. Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor, We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.
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The winter will be short, the summer long, The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot, Tasting of cider and of scuppernong; All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all. The squirrels in their silver fur will fall Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.
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One man stands as free men stand As if his soul might be Brave, unbroken; see his hand Nailed to an oaken tree.
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The rain’s cold grains are silver-gray Sharp as golden sands, A bell is clanging, people sway Hanging by their hands.
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Under oak, ash and thorn My soul was born. Under thorn, oak and ash My body bent to the lash.
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I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray, Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves; That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath, Summer, so much too beautiful to stay, Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves, And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.
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Orchard of the strangest fruits Hanging from the skies; Brothers, yet insensate brutes Who fear each others’ eyes.
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Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones There’s something in this richness that I hate. I love the look, austere, immaculate, Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones. There’s something in my very blood that owns Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate, A thread of water, churned to milky spate Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.