“The Teasers Not but they die, the teasers and the dreams, Not but they die, and tell the careful flood To give them what they clamour for and why. You could not fancy where they rip to blood You could… — William Empson Copy Share Image
“Villanelle It is the pain, it is the pain endures. Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through. Poise of my hands reminded me of… — William Empson Copy Share
Proust has listed a great many reasons why it is impossible to be happy, but, in the course of being happy, one finds it… — William Empson Copy Share
“Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end. What is there to be or do? What's become of me or you? Are we… — William Empson Copy Share
“Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and… — William Empson Copy Share
The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own. — William Empson Copy Share
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and… — William Empson Copy Share
I'm afraid I take ... this rather clinical view of love: it's saving you from madness. I'm not so enthusiastic as other poets have been. — William Empson Copy Share
All those large dreams by which men long live well Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell. — William Empson Copy Share
Twixt devil and deep sea, man hacks his caves; Birth, death; one, many; what is true, and seems; Earth's vast hot iron, cold space's… — William Empson Copy Share
