Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Thomas Bailey Aldrichwas an American writer, poet, critic, and editor. He is notable for his long editorship of The Atlantic Monthly, during which he published works by Charles Chesnutt and others. He was also known for his semi-autobiographical book The Story of a Bad Boy, and for his poetry, which included "The Unguarded Gates"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth11 November 1836
CountryUnited States of America
suicide thinking blue
So I sit there kicked my heels, thinking about New Orleans, and watching a morbid blue-bottle fly attempt to commit suicide by butting his head against the windowpane.
passion men air
Wide open and unguarded stand our gates And through them presses a wild motley throng Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav Flying the Old World's poverty and scorn These bringing with them unknown gods and rites Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws In street and alley what strange tongues are loud Accents of menace alien to our air Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew! O Liberty, white Goddess! Is it well To leave the gates unguarded?
rain wind rivers
We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed The white of their leaves, the amber grain Shrunk in the wind,-and the lightning now Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.
memorial-day land tears
With the tears a Land hath shed. Their graves should ever be green.
civilization skins revolution
Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.
vocabulary age next
What is slang in one age sometimes goes into the vocabulary of the purist in the next.
dark moon water
Up from the dark the moon begins to creep; and now a pallid, haggard face lifts she above the water-line: thus from the deep a drowned body rises solemnly.
pain destiny chains-that-bind
A glance, a word -- and joy or pain befalls.... How slight the links are in the chain that binds us to our destiny!
cutting dust half
Great thoughts in crude, unshapely verse set forth lose half their preciousness, and ever must, unless the diamond with its own rich dust be cut and polished, it seems little worth.
laughing optimism joy
This one sits shivering in Fortune's smile, taking his joy with bated, doubtful breath. This other, gnawed by hunger, all the while laughs in the teeth of Death.
letting-go kings war
My mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings
forever speak affair
Shakespeare is forever coming into our affairs -- putting in his oar, so to speak -- with some pat word or sentence.
father able banking
My father invested his money so securely in the banking business that he was never able to get any of it out again.
eye gay laughing
Black Tragedy lets slip her grim disguise and shows you laughing lips and roguish eyes; but when, unmasked, gay Comedy appears, how wan her cheeks are, and what heavy tears!