Charlotte Mew > Quotes

“There is something horrible about a flower;
This, broken in my hand, is one of those
He threw it in just now; it will not live another hour;
There are thousands more; you do not miss a rose.”
― Charlotte Mew

“Now I will burn you back, I will burn you through,
Though I am damned for it we two will lie
And burn, here where the starlings fly”
― Charlotte Mew

“You were
sunrise to me
rise and warm and streaming.' - Praise Song For My Mother by Charlotte Mew”
― Charlotte Mew, The Complete Poems

“But still it was a lovely thing
Through the grey months to wait for Spring”
― Charlotte Mew, Collected Poems and Selected Prose

“A Quoi Bon Dire"

Seventeen years ago you said
Something that sounded like Good-bye;
And everybody thinks that you are dead,
But I.

So I, as I grow stiff and cold
To this and that say Good-bye too;
And everybody sees that I am old
But you.

And one fine morning in a sunny lane
Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear
That nobody can love their way again,
While over there
You will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair.”
― Charlotte Mew, The Farmer's Bride

“before I die I want to see
The world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes”
― Charlotte Mew

“You were
water to me
deep and bold and fathoming' - Praise Song For My Mother by Charlotte Mew”
― Charlotte Mew, The Complete Poems

“The Farmer's Bride

Three Summers since I chose a maid,
Too young maybe - but more's to do
At harvest-time than bide and woo.
When us was wed she turned afraid
Of love and me and all things human;
Like the shut of a winter's day
Her smile went out, and 'twasn't a woman -
More like a little frightened fay.
One night, in the Fall, she runned away.
'Out 'mong the sheep, her be,' they said,
Should properly have been abed;
But sure enough she wasn't there
Lying awake with her wide brown stare.
So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down
We chased her, flying like a hare
Before our lanterns. To Church-Town
All in a shiver and a scare
We caught her, fetched her home at last
And turned the key upon her, fast.
She does the work about the house
As well as most, but like a mouse:
Happy enough to chat and play
With birds and rabbits and such as they,
So long as men-folk keep away.
'Not near, not near!' her eyes beseech
When one of us comes within reach.
The women say that beasts in stall
Look round like children at her call.
I've hardly heard her speak at all.
Shy as a leveret, swift as he,
Straight and slight as a young larch tree,
Sweet as the first wild violets, she,
To her wild self. But what to me?
The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,
The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky,
One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,
A magpie's spotted feathers lie
On the black earth spread white with rime,
The berries redden up to Christmas-time.
What's Christmas-time without there be
Some other in the house than we!
She sleeps up in the attic there
Alone, poor maid. 'Tis but a stair
Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down,
The soft young down of her; the brown,
The brown of her - her eyes, her hair, her hair!”
― Charlotte Mew

“It was not you, it was your eyes – I spoke to them.”
― Charlotte Mew, Selected Poems: Charlotte Mew

“But first I want your life: - before I die I want to see
The world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes
There is nothing gay or green there for my gathering, it may be,
Yet on brown fields there lies
A haunting purple bloom: is there not something in grey skies
And in grey sea?
I want what world there is behind your eyes,”
― Charlotte Mew, Selected Poems: Charlotte Mew

“Now I will burn you back, I will burn you through, Though I am damned for it we two will lie And burn.”
― Charlotte Mew, Selected Poetry And Prose

“I have been through the gates, I have
groped, I have crept
Back, back. There is dust in the streets, and blood; they are empty; darkness is over them;
His heart is a place with the lights gone out, forsaken by great winds and the heavenly
rain, unclean and unswept,
Like the heart of the holy city, old, blind, beautiful Jerusalem,
Over which Christ wept.”
― Charlotte Mew, Selected Poems: Charlotte Mew

“The scent of the unsilenced sea would linger on
In these dark waves, and round the silence that was you.”
― Charlotte Mew, Selected Poems: Charlotte Mew

“There is something horrible about a flower;
This, broken in my hand, is one of those
He threw it in just now; it will not live another hour;
There are thousands more; you do not miss a rose”
― Charlotte Mew, Collected Poems

“She did not love You like the rest.”
― Charlotte Mew, Selected Poems: Charlotte Mew

“You were
moon's eye to me
pull and grained and mantling' - Praise Song For My Mother by Charlotte Mew”
― Charlotte Mew

“I want to see the world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes.”
― Charlotte Mew, Selected Poems: Charlotte Mew