"He going with me must go well arm’d"
#WaltWhitman #SongOfTheOpenRoad #Poetry

Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.

~Mary Oliver

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

#Poetry #SarahWilliams #TheOldAstronomerToHisPupil

"Love is anterior to Life —
Posterior to Death,
Initial of Creation, and
The Exponent of Breath."

#EmilyDickinson #Poetry

(Pictured: Transcription of the poem made by Alice Hill (Emily's nephew's wife), from the collection of one of Emily's editors Mabel Loomis Todd, donated to Amherst College)

"Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

I beat and pound for the dead,
I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them"

#WaltWhitman #Poetry #SongOfMyself