Quotes from bynner witter

Caressing reassures lovers that their love endures.

I am a miser of my memories of you And will not spend them. When they were anticipations I spent them And bought you with them, But now I have exchanged you for memories, And I will only pour them from one hand into the other And back again.

This veil Of lavender and dawn Floats off Invisible, And this of purple noon Unwinds in wisdom, And this of evening Twitters, undulates, Dips, darts, And this of night Circles around me singing To the very edge and presence of the young moon-- And it brushes the tip Like lips Three times.

A man who knows how little he knows is well, a man who knows how much he knows is sick.

O, high the happy bosom heaves When love is in the dancer!

For run as fast as ever I may, My heart Moves only with you, Only with your blossoms, Remembering them Or awaiting them, Moving when you move in the wind And still when you are still.

O joy not yet begun But only about to be, O sweet invisible unceasing wave Following me, following me, Through the sea-like grave!

We were dusty with our books. Come and let us go Out among the lyric brooks, Where the verses grow, Where the world is one delight Made of many a song Lasting till the nod of night, Lovely all day long.

The Earth is a jewel; he hangs 'mid the hair, He gleams 'mid the teeth of my Paradise there, Who tilts back a face that was born to beguile; And his nights are her tresses, his days are her smile.

On we climb, keeping time To hidden goat-bells' nibbling chime, Feet in the dew of ferns we climb, Souls in a sort of winding rhyme, Up the path that turns and turns Toward the top where morning burns.

High is the fife and low the drum, And people lean to see, And hats are off where heroes come, And none is off to me.

There is a solitide in seeing you, Followed by your company when you are gone. You are like heaven's veins of lightning. I cannot see till afterward How beautiful you are. There is a blindness in seeing you, Followed by the sight of you when you are gone.

Leaping from that other darkness Come two circles of flame-- When the pressure of your lips Made of my eyes Two suns Embracing the world with light ... It was a darkness As rich with strong wonder As the depths of the sea, And you were upon me Like great sea-gardens And great waves ...

Though you have sailed no farther from me Than a quiet bay Beyond a point of cedars, Yet you have been as far away As death.

The most we can do is to die--contented, discontent; With a few to wonder why, and whither our spirit went, And what the interval meant!

But I have given your nakedness the gift of mine, And whosoever brings, from this day forth, Obeisances To the hollow of your bosom, Shall find between those hills of sun, Beloved, My shadow....

Is there an eye of endless light For what we do and dare? Or are we playing to the night With nobody to care?

Only by remembering you, O east of my west, Can I make my lovers real to me, And only by forgetting you Can I find my truest solitude Strange and unknown to me.

There is a chill deeper than that of death, In the return of the beloved and not of love. And there is no warmth for it But the warmth of a world which needs more than the sun-- Or the warmth of lament for beauty, Which is graven on many stones.