Elinor Wylie

“I was, being human, born alone; I am, being woman, hard beset; I live by squeezing from a stone The little nourishment…

— Elinor Wylie

“The winter will be short, the summer long, The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot, Tasting of cider and of scuppernong.”

— Elinor Wylie

“Pretty Words" Poets make pets of pretty, docile words: I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish Which circle slowly with a silken…

— Elinor Wylie

“I love bright words, words up and singing early; Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing; Warm lazy words, white…

— Elinor Wylie

The bird Imagination, That flies so far, that dies so soon; Her wings are colored like the sun, Her breast is colored…

— Elinor Wylie

The winter will be short, the summer long, The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot, Tasting of cider and of scuppernong; All seasons…

— Elinor Wylie

I bear a little more than I can bear.

— Elinor Wylie

When strawberries go begging, and the sleek Blue plums lie open to the blackbird's beak, We shall live well--we shall live very…

— Elinor Wylie

I shall lie folded like a saint, Lapped in a scented linen sheet, On a bedstead striped with bright-blue paint, Narrow and…

— Elinor Wylie

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones There's something in this richness that I hate. I love the look, austere, immaculate,…

— Elinor Wylie

I am better able to imagine hell than heaven; it is my inheritance, I suppose.

— Elinor Wylie

If you would keep your soul From spotted sight or sound, Live like the velvet mole; Go burrow underground.

— Elinor Wylie

“The morning after / my death” The morning after my death we will sit in cafés but I will not be there…

— Elinor Wylie

An old earthen pipe like myself is dry and thirsty and so a most voracious drinker of life at its source; I'm…

— Elinor Wylie

If any have a stone to throw It is not I, ever or now.

— Elinor Wylie

Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover; A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year; The spring begins before the…

— Elinor Wylie

In masks outrageous and austere The years go by in single file; But none has merited my fear, And none has quite…

— Elinor Wylie

My lord, adjudge my strength, and set me where I bear a little more than I can bear.

— Elinor Wylie

I have never cared very deeply about the actual taste of my work. Let its essential odor satisfy my mind and senses,…

— Elinor Wylie