Quotes from George Sterling

A prison becomes a home when you have the key.

A prison becomes a home when you have the key.

Within its gates I heard the sound Of winds in cypress caverns caught Of huddling tress that moaned, and sought To whisper what their roots had found. ("A Dream of Fear")

And starward drifts the stricken world, Lone in unalterable gloom Dead, with a universe for tomb, Dark, and to vaster darkness whirled. ("The Testimony of the Suns")

As a breath on glass, - As witch-fires that burn, The gods and monsters pass, Are dust, and return. ("The Face of the Skies")

When sunset, like a crimson throat to hell, is cavernous... ("A Wine of Wizardry")

Where got she her sullen mouth And where her swaying form? Would she live on eggs and apples When the blood of men is warm? ("The Young Witch")

And fragile is thy tenure of this world Still haunted by the monstrous ghost of God. (To Science)

O Space and Time and stars at strife, How dreadful your infinity! Shrined by your termless trinity, How strange, how terrible, is life! ("The Testimony of the Suns")

What silence rules the ghostly hours That guard the close of human sleep! ("The Testimony of the Suns")

Till her appointed course be run; Till on the darkness faint her breath Flown to the silent void, and Death Sit crowned upon the ashen sun. ("The Testimony of the Suns")

The candle glimmers but an hour. The night Looms in its ancient hunger. Would you know The tragedy of human love and need? Gaze on the stars, then on a brother's face!

The pathway traced with blood and tears, and dust of all our father's dead, Whose backward footsteps, wandering, red, Fade to the mist of nameless years. ("The Testimony of the Suns")

A little while, their hunger unfulfilled, The mothlike worlds flit 'round the guttering sun. (Ephemera)

Be sure that head and heart were laid In wisdom down, content to die. Be sure he faced the Starless Sky Unduped, unmurmuring, unafraid. ("The Passing of Bierce")

Or sit they girt by laws unknown Whereto the senses serve as bars – With fire of unrecorded stars That light a heaven not our own? ("The Testimony of the Suns")

The mountain seems no more a soulless thing, But rather as a shape of ancient fear, In darkness and the winds of Chaos born Amid the lordless heavens' thundering- A Presence crouched, enormous and austere, Before whose feet the mighty waters mourn.

For mystery hath lordship here, and ye Seem spirit-flowers born to startle man With intimations of eternity And hint of what the flowers of Heaven may be.

The cool, grey city of love.

Let him who is worthy by reason of his clear eye and unjaded heart wander across these borders of beauty and mystery and be glad.