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The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.

Robert Graves

Poetry is no more a narcotic than a stimulant; it is a universal bittersweet mixture for all possible household emergencies and its action varies accordingly as it is taken in a wineglass or a tablespoon, inhaled, gargled or rubbed on the chest by hard fingers covered with rings.
ROBERT GRAVES

Emergency Mixture Narcotic Poetry Ring Universal
Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart’s desire.
ROBERT GRAVES

Affection Believe Children Emotion Fire
Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties.
ROBERT GRAVES

Beautiful Hand Impress Impressive Noble Poet Poetry Result Saying Simplicity Try
Any honest housewife would sort them out, Having a nose for fish, an eye for apples.
ROBERT GRAVES
The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate with green the Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of Her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
ROBERT GRAVES

Affection Betrayal Child Children Family Feeling God Husband Mother Motherhood Sacrifice Song Soul
Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.
ROBERT GRAVES

Age Encourage Great Greatness Interest Life Passion People Principle Proof Spiritual Support
This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
ROBERT GRAVES

Destiny Irrelevant Love Philosophy Poet Question
The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.
ROBERT GRAVES

Excitement Experience Function Herself Horror Poetry Presence Religious
For words of rapture groping, they”Never such love,” swore “ever before was!”
ROBERT GRAVES

Difficult Literature Torture Word
This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
ROBERT GRAVES

Beautiful Destiny Impress Impressive Noble Philosophical Poet Poetry Result Saying Simplicity Widely
Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.
ROBERT GRAVES

Age Encourage Great Greatness Interest Life Passion People Principle Proof Spiritual Support
The poet’s first rule must be never to bore his readers; and his best way of keeping this rule is never to bore himself-which, of course, means to write only when he has something urgent to say.
ROBERT GRAVES

Famous Writer Hobby Interest Mission Personal Rare Reveal Secret Writing Zeal
What we now call “finance” is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.
ROBERT GRAVES

Beginning Finance Hold Human Intellectual Love Myself Warm
Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.
ROBERT GRAVES

Achieve Beautiful Effect Impress Impressive Noble Poet Poetry Result Saying Simplicity Widely
But that so many scholars are barbarians does not much matter so long as a few of them are ready to help with their specialized knowledge the few independent thinkers, that is to say the poets, who try to to keep civilization alive.
ROBERT GRAVES

Civilization Help Independent Poet Scholar Specialization Thinking
Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight
ROBERT GRAVES

Culture Dream Fight Hate Light Machine Men Passion Root Vision

The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.

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The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.

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