The Grass Harp Quotes

The King beneath the mountains, The King of carven stone, The lord of silver fountains Shall come into his own! His crown shall be upholden, His harp shall be restrung, His halls shall echo golden To songs of yore re-sung. The woods shall wave on mountains. And grass beneath the sun; His wealth shall flow in fountains And the rivers golden run. The streams shall run in gladness, The lakes shall shine and burn, And sorrow fail and sadness At the Mountain-king’s return!

...of all things this was the saddest, that life goes on: if one leaves one's lover, life should stop for him, and if one disappears from the world, then the world should stop, too: and it never did. And that was the real reason for most people getting up in the morning: not because it would matter but because it wouldn't.

It may be that there is no place for any of us. Except we know there is somewhere; and if we found it, but lived there only a moment, we could count ourselves blessed.

But, ah, the energy we spend hiding from one another, afraid as we are of being identified.

If some wizard would like to give me a present, let him give me a bottle filled with the voices of that kitchen, the ha ha ha and the fire whispering, a bottle brimming with its buttery sugary smells . . .

We are speaking of love. A leaf, a handful of seed - begin with these, learn a little what it is to love. First a leaf, a fall of rain, then someone to receive what a leaf has taught you, what a fall of rain has ripened. No easy process, understand; it could take a lifetime, it has mine, and still I've never mastered it - I only know how true it is; that love is a chain of love, as nature is a chain of life.

Чарли каза, че обичта е низ от обич.

So little, once it has changed, changes back.

What one says hardly matters, only the trust with which it is said, the sympathy with which it is received.

Dreams are the mind of the soul and the secret truth about us.

It was like the time he'd failed algebra and felt so relieved, so free: failure was definite, a certainty, and there is always peace in certainties.

I've been other things beside a clown. I have sold insurance, too.

It's the uncertainty concerning themselves that makes our friends conspire to deny the differences.

If you are not admired no one will take the trouble to disapprove.

I'll own up: I think it is a dream, Miss Verena. But a man who doesn't dream is like a man who doesn't sweat: he stores up a lot of poison.

Dolly said that when she was a girl she’d liked to wake up winter mornings and hear her father singing as he went about the house building fires; after he was old, after he’d died, she sometimes heard his songs in the field of Indian grass. Wind, Catherine said; and Dolly told her: But the wind is us—it gathers and remembers all our voices, then sends them talking and telling through the leaves and the fields—I’ve heard Papa clear as day. On

the wind is us—it gathers and remembers all our voices, then sends them talking and telling through the leaves and the fields—I

If you can hear time passing it makes the day last longer. I've come to appreciate a long day.

To hell with all that, began the Sheriff, and was again interrupted by Mrs. Buster, who said that under no circumstances would she tolerate swearing: will we Reverend? and the Reverend, backing her up, said he'd be damned if they would.

A plaster girl with intense glass eyes sat astride a bicycle pedaling at the maddest pace; though its wheel spokes spun hypnotically, the bicycle of course never budged: all that effort and the poor girl going nowhere. It was a pitifully human situation, and one that Sylvia could so exactly identify with herself that she always felt a real pang.

Доленце, дай на съдията малко от одеялото: човекът трепери, наближава Халоин.

Казвам, това вашето е позор. Как можахте да се отдалечите толкова от бога, че да седнете на едно дърво като пияна индианка и да смучете цигари като най-долна…

All private worlds are good, they are never vulgar places. A man who doesn't dream is like a man who doesn't sweat: he stores up a lot of poison.

He went back upstairs, and sat at his desk, and felt as though he were bleeding inside, and wished very much to believe in God.

we skidded long enough for a detailed review of our lives.

<>, le decía Catherine. Y Dolly le respondía: <>.

she seemed to be moving forward into the future, while I, unable to follow, was left with my sameness.

She was one of those people who can disguise themselves as an object in the room, a shadow in the corner, whose presence is a delicate happening.

whom everything can be said. Am I an idiot to want such a thing? But ah, the energy we spend hiding from one another, afraid as we are of being identified.

Now there are no heroes, no soothing music, No harp, no hawk soaring through hall, No swift horses trampling green grass. We existed; now we’re extinct.

Love is a strange thing, and I yearn for it once more. I don't need to give it much thought, I just need to give it sunlight and space to grow--to run in a field of tall grass and be free.

believe she became what he’d wanted, the one person in the world—to whom, as he’d described it, everything can be said. But when everything can be said perhaps there is nothing more to say.

The police said for Oreilly to get to his feet. "Certainly," Oreilly said, "though I do think it shocking you have to trouble yourself with such petty crimes as mine when everywhere there are master thieves afoot. "For instance, this pretty child," he stepped between the officers and pointed at Sylvia, "she is the recent victim of a major theft; poor baby, she has had her soul stolen.

Es el viento”, le decía Catherine. Y Dolly le respondía: “Pero el viento somos nosotros… reúne y recuerda todas nuestras voces y después las envía charlando y contando sus cosas entre las hojas y los campos”.

Снахите се разпореждаха в къщата на съдията и я разделиха на две жилища с отделни входове; бяха се споразумели старият да живее ту при единия, тук при другия син. Нищо чудно, че му се бе дощяло да се разходи в гората.

После той ни видя на дървото и след миг каза: - Хей, здрасти Катрин Крийк; здравейте мис Талбоу. Какво правите там горе? Да не ви гони дива котка? - Ей така, седим си – отговори мигновено Доли, сякаш се боеше да не би Катрин или аз да я изпреварим

Above me, far out from the cliff, a wide-winged Thomas Hawk circles above the lagoon on rising thermals and scans the shifting bluekelp beds with its infrared vision, seeking out harp seals or torpids. Nature is stupid, I think and sit in the soft grass.

Preacher spit on the ground and swaggered over to Billy Bob. Come on, he said, just as though nothing had happened, She's a hard one, she is, she don't want nothing but to make trouble between two good friends. For a moment it looked as if Billy Bob was going to join him in a peaceful togetherness; but suddenly, coming to his senses, he drew back and made a gesture. The boys regarded each other a full minute, all the closeness between them turning an ugly color: you can't hate so much unless you love, too.

Never May the Fruit Be Plucked” Never, never may the fruit be plucked from the bough And gathered into barrels. He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs. Though the branches bend like reeds, Though the ripe fruit splash in the grass or wrinkle on the tree, He that would eat of love may bear away with him Only what his belly can hold, Nothing in the apron, Nothing in the pockets. Never, never may the fruit be gathered from the bough And harvested in barrels. The winter of love is a cellar of empty bins, In an orchard soft with rot.

By scraps and bits I’ve in the past surrendered myself to strangers—men who disappeared down the gangplank, got off at the next station: put together, maybe they would’ve made the one person in the world—but there he is with a dozen different faces moving down a hundred separate streets.

Kay yawned and rested her forehead against the windowpane, her fingers idly strumming the guitar: the strings sang a hollow, lulling tune, as monotonously soothing as the Southern landscape, smudged in darkness, flowing past the window. An icy winter moon rolled above the train across the night sky like a thin white wheel.

Мы говорим о любви. Начни с листа, с горстки семян и узнай, что значит любить. Сначала древесный лист, капля дождя, а уж потом тот, кто примет всё, чему тебя научил лист, что настоялось благодаря дождевой капле. Учти, дело не простое, может уйти целая жизнь, как в моём случае, и ведь я так и не освоил эту науку, знаю лишь одно: любовь - это цепочка привязанностей, так же как природа - это цепочка жизней.

Но сколько же сил тратим мы на скрытничанье из опасения быть опознанным. И вот нас опознали: пятеро шутов на дереве. Это ли не удача, если правильно ею воспользоваться. Можешь уже не беспокоиться о том, как ты выглядишь в чужих глазах; разбирайся, кто ты есть, как свободный человек. Главное, знать, что никто тебя не уберёт с твоего законного места. Это от неуверенности в себе люди сговариваются, чтобы отрицать разночтения.

Nunca hubiera creído que ninguno de vosotros dos tuviera tanta imaginación. ¿O es que soy yo quien lo está imaginando? Lo mismo que estoy soñando que me encuentro en un árbol mojado en una noche de tormenta. Pero nunca tengo sueños, o quizá sea que los olvido. Y este es uno que sugiero que todos debemos olvidar. - Sería mejor que esto fuera un sueño, Verena. Porque una persona que no sueña es como una que no suda: conserva en sí gran cantidad de veneno.

He leído que el pasado y el futuro son una espiral cada una de cuyas vueltas contiene a la próxima y predice su forma. Quizá sea así, pero mi propia vida me ha parecido más bien una serie de círculos cerrados, de anillos que no se desarrollan con la libertad de una espiral. Para mí, pasar de uno a otro de esos círculos significa un salto, no un deslizamiento suave. Lo que me debilitaba era el intervalo entre ellos, la espera mientras no sabía hacia dónde debía saltar.

When was it that first I heard of the grass harp? Long before the autumn we lived in the China tree; an earlier autumn, then; and of course it was Dolly who told me, no one else would have known to call it that, a grass harp. . . If on leaving town you take the church road you soon will pass a glaring hill of bonewhite slabs and brown burnt flowers: this is the Baptist cemetery. . . below the hill grows a field of high Indian grass that changes color with the seasons: go to see it in the fall, late September, when it has gone red as sunset, when scarlet shadows light firelight breeze over it and the autumn winds strum on its dry leaves sighing human music, a harp of voices. . . It must have been on one of those September days when we were there in the woods gathering roots that Dolly said: Do you hear? that is the grass harp, always telling a story -- it knows the stories of all the people on the hill, of all the people who ever lived, and when we are dead it will tell ours, too.

- Estábamos hablando del amor. Una hoja, un puñado de simiente… Empieza con eso, aprende un poco lo que es el amor. Primero una hoja, la caída de la lluvia, después alguien que pueda recibir lo que la hoja te enseñó, lo que maduró la lluvia. No es un proceso fácil, compréndelo: puede exigir toda una vida, como me ocurrió a mí, y aún no he logrado dominarlo ni creo que lo haga nunca… Sólo sé esta verdad tan grande: que el amor es una cadena de amor del mismo modo que la naturaleza es una cadena de vida.

Излезе вятър и забрули листата, разкъса нощните облаци; заструиха потоци звездна светлина; свещта ни сякаш се уплаши от сиянието на откритото, пронизано от звезди небе, катурна се и ние видяхме, разсъблечена над нас, като снежен резен, късната далечна зимна луна и от близо и далеч разни живинки започнаха да я зоват, клечащи жабоци с нейното отражение в очите си, дива котка с ноктест глас. Катрин разгърна розовата постелка и настоя Доли да се наметне, после подложи ръка под мен и ме зачеса по главата, докато се отпуснах на гърдите ѝ.

Промени ли се нещо, то рядко става пак каквото е било: сега светът ни знаеше, никога нямаше да бъдем пак на топло; обзе ме отчаяние, представих си как зимата сковава дървото и се разплаках, разкиснах се като прогнил парцал. Плачеше ми се още откак бяхме напуснали къщата. Мисис Каунти ми поиска извинение – ако е казала нещо и ме е разстроила; тя изтри лицето ми с престилката си у стана такава цапаница, от брашно и сълзи, че се разсмяхме; право казват, че плачът помага, олекна ми на душата. Мистър Каунти се бе оттеглил в предната част на магазина, беше му неудобно от моето немъжко поведение; разбирах го, но не ме досрамя.

Pero supongo que ni el juez ni Dolly tenían muchas cosas de naturaleza privada que contarse; se aceptaban entre sí sin excitación, como personas que han asentado firmemente sus afectos. En otros aspectos el juez era un hombre desencantado, aunque no a causa de Dolly, pues creo que ella se había convertido en lo que él deseaba: la persona única en el mundo a la que, como nos había descrito, se le podía contar todo. Pero cuando todo puede decirse, quizá no queda nada que decir. El juez se sentaba junto a la cama de la enferma, contento de estar allí y sin esperar especial atención. Frecuentemente, fatigada por la fiebre, Dolly se dormía, y si mientras lo hacía se agitaba o gemía, la despertaba y la recibía con la bienvenida de una sonrisa luminosa como el día.

a person to whom everything can be said. Am I an idiot to want such a thing? But ah, the energy we spend hiding from one another, afraid as we are of being identified. But here we are, identified: five fools in a tree. A great piece of luck provided we know how to use it: no longer any need to worry about the picture we present—free to find out who we truly are. If we know that no one can dislodge us; it’s the uncertainty concerning themselves that makes our friends conspire to deny the differences. By scraps and bits I’ve in the past surrendered myself to strangers—men who disappeared down the gangplank, got off at the next station: put together, maybe they would’ve made the one person in the world—but there he is with a dozen different faces moving down a hundred separate streets. This is my chance to find that man—you are him, Miss Dolly, Riley, all of you.

As he began to strum his harp, he filled his mind with images of earth. Old crumbling stones and tangled grasses and wildflowers and weeds and saplings that put down deep roots, growing into mighty trees. The color of dirt, the scent of it. How it felt clutched in the hollow of one’s palm. The voice of branches swaying in the breeze, and the slope of the earth as it rose and fell, faithful and steady. Jack closed his eyes and began to sing. He didn’t want to see the spirits manifest, but he heard the grass hissing near his knees, and he heard the tree boughs groaning above him, and he heard the scratch of stone, as if two were being rubbed together. When he heard Adaira’s soft gasp, Jack opened his eyes. The spirits were forming themselves, gathering around him to listen. He played and sang and watched as the trees became maidens with long arms and hair made of leaves. The grass and pennywort knotted themselves into what looked to be mortal lads, small and green. The stones found their faces like old men waking from a long dream. The wildflowers broke their stems and gathered into the shape of a woman with long dark hair and eyes the color of honeysuckle, her skin purple as the heather that bloomed on the hills. Yellow gorse crowned her, and she waited beside the Earie Stone, whose face was still forming, craggy and ancient. As Jack played Lorna’s ballad he felt as if he was slowly sinking into the earth. His limbs were becoming heavy, and he drooped like a flower wilting beneath a fierce sun. It was like the sensation of falling asleep. He swore he saw daisies blooming from his fingertips, and every time he plucked his strings the petals broke away but regrew just as swiftly. And his ankles…he couldn’t move them, the tree roots had begun to take hold of him. His hair was turning into grass, green and long and tangled, and as the song ended he struggled to remember who he was, that he was mortal, a man. Someone was coming to him, bright as a fallen star, and he felt her hands on his face, blissfully cold. “Please,” the woman said, but not to him. She beseeched the wildflower spirit with her long dark hair and crown of vibrant gorse. “Please, this man belongs to me. You cannot claim him.” “Why, mortal woman,” one of the pennywort lads said from the ground, his words raspy as summer hay falling to a scythe. “Why did you sit so far away from him? We thought he sang to be taken by us.” Jack snapped out of the haze. Adaira was kneeling beside him, her hand shifting to his arm. He was stricken to see that he had truly been turning into the earth—grass, flowers, and roots. His harp clattered from his tingling hands; he struggled to breathe as he watched his body return to him. “He is mine, and he played to bring you forth by my command,” Adaira said calmly. “I long to speak to you, spirits of the earth.

We dare not be original; our American Pine must be cut to the trim pattern of the English Yew, though the Pine bleed at every clip. This poet tunes his lyre at the harp of Goethe, Milton, Pope, or Tennyson. His songs might better be sung on the Rhine than the Kennebec. They are not American in form or feeling; they have not the breath of our air; the smell of our ground is not in them. Hence our poet seems cold and poor. He loves the old mythology; talks about Pluto—the Greek devil,—— the Fates and Furies—witches of old time in Greece,—-but would blush to use our mythology, or breathe the name in verse of our Devil, or our own Witches, lest he should be thought to believe what he wrote. The mother and sisters, who with many a pinch and pain sent the hopeful boyto college, must turn over the Classical Dictionary before they can find out what the youth would be at in his rhymes. Our Poet is not deep enough to see that Aphrodite came from the ordinary waters, that Homer only hitched into rhythm and furnished the accomplishment of verse to street talk, nursery tales, and old men’s gossip, in the Ionian towns; he thinks what is common is unclean. So he sings of Corinth and Athens, which he never saw, but has not a word to say of Boston, and Fall River, and Baltimore, and New York, which are just as meet for song. He raves of Thermopylae and Marathon, with never a word for Lexington and Bunkerhill, for Cowpens, and Lundy’s Lane, and Bemis’s Heights. He loves to tell of the Ilyssus, of “ smooth sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,” yet sings not of the Petapsco, the Susquehannah, the Aroostook, and the Willimantick. He prates of the narcissus, and the daisy, never of American dandelions andbue-eyed grass; he dwells on the lark and the nightingale, but has not a thought for the brown thrasher and the bobolink, who every morning in June rain down such showers of melody on his affected head. What a lesson Burns teaches us addressing his “rough bur thistle,” his daisy, “wee crimson tippit thing,” and finding marvellous poetry in the mouse whose nest his plough turned over! Nay, how beautifully has even our sweet Poet sung of our own Green river, our waterfowl,of the blue and fringed gentian, the glory of autumnal days.

In the other story, the real one that must be nurtured with the gentleness of a seedling plant, two days hence would bring leaves, grass and Robert Trout. His visit must remain clandestine, his company continue; there were too many questions, too much poetry to hear, more harp song perhaps. And the genial hum of him. Peculiar to feel such kinship with a stranger. And sympathy for his rootless plight filled Lavender like an interior stream---a rill and beck that coursed through her veins and chased the coracle of her heart along at a pace so rapid she trembled at the risk of it capsizing, tossing her onto the shores of some barren, alien planet.

PSALM 92 ‡It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; 2†to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, 3†to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. 4For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy. 5How great are your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep! 6The stupid man cannot know; the fool cannot understand this: 7that though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever; 8but you, O LORD, are on high forever. 9For behold, your enemies, O LORD,

It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, 2 proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, 3 to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp. 4 For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord; I sing for joy at what your hands have done. 5 How great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts! 6 Senseless people do not know, fools do not understand, 7 that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever. 8 But you, Lord, are forever exalted.