Quotes from benet stephen vincent iii

My people are the Hill People. They are the men. I go into the Dead Places but I am not slain. I take the metal from the Dead Places but I am not blasted. I travel upon the god-roads and am not afraid.

Go play with the towns you have built of blocks, The towns where you would have bound me! I sleep in my earth like a tired fox, And my buffalo have found me.

It won't be till each one of us is willing, Not you, not me, but every one of us, To hang upon a cross for every man Who suffers, starves and dies, Fight his sore battles as they were our own, And help him from the darkness and the mire, That there will be no crosses and no tyrants, No Herods and no slaves.

Lust is a sprightly servant, Gallant where wines are poured; Love is a bitter master, Love is an iron lord.

God is sure, And in his hands are things secure.

For the cold of the pistol-butt and the bullet's heat, For the ropes that choke, the manacles that bind, The huge voice, metal, that lies from a thousand tubes And the stuttering machine-gun that answers all.

Why have you taken my heart from me? I am not justice nor loyalty. I am the shape of the weathercock, That all winds come to and all winds mock. You are the image of the sea-carved stone, The silent thing that can suffer alone, The little women are easier, The easy women make lighter love, I will not take your face to war, I will not carry your cast-off glove.

We heard the shots in the night But nobody knew next day what the trouble was And a man must go to his work.

And I have listened also, in my youth, And more than once or twice, To the trained speech, the excellent advice, The clear, dramatic statement of the sum, And, after it was dumb, Heard, like a spook, the curious echo come, The echo of unkempt and drawling mirth --The lounging mirth of cracker-barrel men, Snowed in by winter, spitting at the fire, And telling the disreputable truth With the sad eye that marks the perfect liar-- And, by that laughter, was set free again.

The map is what we know And it means nothing. I've seen many maps, Talked to a thousand seamen, in my time, And, in the end, there is but this to say, One ventures as one ventures.

The ages crumble down like dust, Dark roses, deviously thrust And scattered in sweet wine -- but I, I shall lift up to you my cry, And kiss your wet lips presently Beneath the ever-living Tree.

Love is not a delicate toying, A slim and shimmering mesh; It is two souls wrenched into one, Two bodies made one flesh.

Black trees against an orange sky, Trees that the wind shook terribly, Like a harsh spume along the road, Quavering up like withered arms, Writhing like streams, like twisted charms Of hot lead flung in snow. Below The iron ice stung like a goad, Slashing the torn shoes from my feet, And all the air was bitter sleet.

If I came to the bed where you lay sick and in fever, I would not come with little tight-fisted flowers But with the white heron's plume that lay in the forest Till it was cooler than sleep.

He shall not come to conquest, The conquest of kings, But in the bare stable He shall judge all things.

For those slain at once. For those living through the months and years Enduring, watching, hoping, going each day To the work or the queue for meat or the secret club, Living meanwhile, begetting children, smuggling guns, And found and killed at the end like rats in a drain.

It is not given me to trace The lovely laughter of that face, Like a clear brook most full of light, Or olives swaying on a height, So silver they have wings, almost; Like a great word once known and lost And meaning all things.

There was no pain when I awoke, No pain at all. Rest, like a goad, Spurred my eyes open -- and light broke Upon them like a million swords: And she was there. There are no words. Heaven is for a moment's span. And ever.

For Liberty can be lost by the practical men whose hearts are too shrunken to contain it. Liberty can be bartered away by the greedy minds who cannot see beyond their own day. Liberty can be stolen away by the robber and the brute. But Liberty grows like grass in the hearts of the common people, from the blood of their martyrs. And the tyrants rage and are gone, but the dream and the deed endure.