James Merrill Quotes

The day is breaking someone else's heart.

Freedom to be oneself is all very well; the greater freedom is not to be oneself.

Nor do I try to keep a garden, only An avocado in a glass of water -- Roots pallid, gemmed with air. And later, When the small gilt leaves have grown Fleshy and green, I let them die, yes, yes, And start another. I am earth's no less.

Let the mind be, along with countless other things, a landing strip for sacred visitations.

The eggshell of appearance split.

Love buries itself in me, up to the hilt.

The sky is realest: the sky cannot Be touched and in the mirror it cannot Be touched. He is enchanted. The rare azur Is flawless; happily blurred blue is no whit Less exquisite than blue unblurred. And what He misses he would never know was there.

Which three authors, dead or alive, would you invite to a literary dinner party? is a question often asked of authors interviewed for The New York Times Book Review. What Edmund White said James Merrill said about a young fan: “Why does he want to meet us in the flesh? Doesn’t he realize the best part of us is on the page and all he’ll be meeting is an empty hive?

Beneath my incredulity All at once is flowing Joy, the flash of the unbaited hook -- Yes, yes, it fits, it's right, it had to be! Intuition weightless and ongoing Like stanzas in a book Or golden scales in the melodic brook --

Lost, is it, buried? One more missing piece? But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation And every bit of us is lost in it (Or found — I wander through the ruin of S Now and then, wondering at the peacefulness) And in that loss a self-effacing tree, Color of context, imperceptibly Rustling with its angel, turns the waste To shade and fiber, milk and memory.

Our little party Got under way as best it could. The twigs Unclenched, the greedy rosebuds caked with smut. The ill-knit creatures, now in hues Of sunstroke, mulberry, white of clown, Yellow of bile, bruise-blacks-and-blues, Stumped outward, waving matchstick arms, Colliding, poking, hurt, in tears

In late 1905 a crisis occurred within the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that soon impacted the remainder of McKay’s life. Two members of the quorum, Matthias F. Cowley and John W. Taylor, were obliged to resign because of their refusal to disavow the further practice of plural marriage. By the time of the April general conference of 1906, Apostle Marriner W. Merrill had died, resulting in three vacancies within the quorum. James E. Talmage, who later was sustained to the same quorum, wrote, “These were filled on nomination and vote by the following: Orson F. Whitney, George F. Richards (a son of the late Apostle Franklin D. Richards) and David O. McKay (a former student of mine). They are good men, and I verily believe selected by inspiration.

Maya departs for city, cat, and lover. The days grow shorter. Summer's over. We take long walks among the flying leaves And ponder turnings taken by our lives. Look at each other closely, as friends will On parting. This is not farewell, Not now. Yet something in the sad End-of-season light remains unsaid.

But you were everywhere beside me, masked, As who was not, in laughter, pain, and love.

The Changing Light at Sandover, an over five-hundred-page epic poem by Pulitzer prize-winning poet, James Merrill (3 March, 1926–6 February, 1995) was inspired by what he called his “twenty-year adventure around the Ouija board,” during which he spoke to dead friends and a wide assortment of spirits.

The tea table at 22 Hyde Park Gate provided an informal education in diversity for the young Virginia Stephen. Not only did she encounter the “great men” of the Victorian and Edwardian eras—Symonds, Watts, Meredith, Lowell, James—who were family friends, but she listened too while

Limp, chill, it shivers in the glow, as when The tenor having braved orchestral fog First sees Brünnhilde sleeping like a log. Laid on the fire, it would hesitate, Trying to think, to feel—then the elate Burst of satori, plucking final sense Boldly from inconclusive evidence.

UNHEEDFULL ONE 3 OF YOUR YEARES MORE WE WANT WE MUST HAVE POEMS OF SCIENCE THE WEORK FINISHT IS BUT A PROLOGUE ABSOLUTES ARE NOW NEEDED YOU MUST MAKE GOD OF SCIENCE TELL OF POWER MANS IGNORANCE FEARES THE POWER WE ARE THAT FEAR STOPS PARADISE WE SPEAK FROM WITHIN THE ATOM

WE SAW THE POWER & WITH IT BUILT A GREAT GREAT GLORY A WORLD YOU CD NOT IMAGINE GOD WAS PLEASD IT WAS A SHINING CRUST OVER THE LAND & SEA WE SUSPENDED ALL LIFE IN AN OZONE LAYER WEIGHTLESS & SELFSUSTAINING CHEMICAL GLITTERING & ROOTLESS WHICH THE ATOM BUILT THAT WE FUSED GOD B TURND AGAINST HIS ARCHANGELS THEY HAD SEEN THAT WE WERE ANTIMATTER

THE FAUST LEGEND IS AN OLD ONE BASED UPON FACT: GOD B SENT 8002 TO POPE INNOCENT VI WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO END A PLAGUE THE POPE MADE A BARGAIN: IMMORTAL LIFE WHICH DISPLEASD GOD BIOLOGY SINCE DEATH IS PRODUCTIVE. INNOCENT GIVEN THE POWER TO BLESS AWAY THE PLAGUE (BY SIMPLY TELLING THEM TO BOIL WATER) HE USED IT. IT BECAME HIS IMMORTALITY THEN AS HE LAY COMPLAINING & DYING HE CURSED ALL BARGAINS WITH