air

A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies.

—Larkin, Philip Arthur

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscapes on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

—Gray,Thomas

We'll all go together when we go, Every Hottentot and every Eskimo, When the air becomes uranious, We'll all go simultaneous, Yes, we'll all go together when we go.

—Lehrer,Tom (Thomas Andrew)

This having learnt, thou hast attained the sum Of wisdom; hope no higher, though all the stars Thou knew'st by name, and all th'ethereal powers, All secrets of the deep, all nature's works, Or works of God in heav'n, air, earth, or sea, And all the riches of this world enjoy'dst, And all the rule, one empire; onlyadd Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add faith, Add virtue, patience, temperance, add love, By name to come called charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess A paradise within thee, happier far.

—Milton,John

Outside the open window The morning air is all awash with angels.

—Wilbur, Richard

The air isnot sofull of motes, of atoms, asthe church is of mercies.

—Donne,John

Gentlemen know that fresh air should be kept in its proper placeöout of doorsöand that,God having given us indoors and out-of-doors, we should not attempt to do away with that distinction.

—Macaulay, Dame (Emilie) Rose

The air moves like a river and carries the clouds with it; just as running water carries all the things that float upon it.

—Leonardo daVinci

Sir Roger told them, with the air of a man who would not give his judgement rashly, that much might be said on both sides.

—Addison,Joseph

Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.

—Milton,John

Away with systems! Away with a corrupt world! Let us breathe the air of the Enchanted island.Golden lie the meadows; golden run the streams; red gold is on the pine-stems. The sun's coming down to earth, and walks the fields and the waters. The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout to him golden shouts.

—Meredith, George

   The feelings withwhichwe facethisnewage of right and opportunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence, where justice and mercyare reconciled, and the judge and the brother are one.

—Wilson, (Thomas) Woodrow

For some time I watch the coming of the night† Above is the glistening galaxy of childhood, now hidden in the Western world by air pollution and the glare of artificial light; for my children's children, the power, peace and healing of the night will be obliterated.

—Matthiessen, Peter

I will not look upon the quickening sun, But straight her beauty to my sense shall run; The air shall note her soft, the fire most pure; Water suggest her clear, and the earth sure; Time shall not lose our passages.

—Donne,John

I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.

—Atwood, Margaret Eleanor

Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those?

—Housman, A(lfred) E(dward)

The man lies late since he has lost his job, smokes on one elbow, letting his coughs fall thinly into an air too poor to rob.

—Morgan, Edwin George

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

And filled the air with barbarous dissonance.

—Milton,John

Some thirty inches from my nose The frontier of my Person goes, And all the untilled air between Is private pagus or demesne. Stranger, unless with bedroom eyes I beckon you to fraternize, Beware of rudely crossing it: I have no gun, but I can spit.

—Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)

Musicians wrestle everywhereö All dayöamong the crowded air I hear the silver strifeö Andöwakingölong before the mornö Such transport breaks upon the town I think it that 'New Life!'

—Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth

Todayart is moving in a direction of which our fathers would never even have dreamed.We stand before the new pictures as in a dream and we hear the apocalyptic horsemen in the air.

—Marc, Franz

I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where.

—Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

   Let them bestow on every airth a limb, Then open all my veins that I may swim To thee, my Maker, in that crimson lake; Then place my parboiled head upon a stake, Scatter my ashes, strew them in the airö Lord! since thou knowest where all these atoms are, I'm hopeful thou'lt recover once my dust, And confident thou'lt raise me with the just.

—Montrose,James Graham, 1st Marquis of

And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

—Larkin, Philip Arthur

I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die, For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of Heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Beneath is spread like a green sea The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair; Underneath Day's azure eyes, Ocean's nursling,Venice lies,ö A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite's destined halls.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Happy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air, In his own ground.

—Pope, Alexander

I thought I could not breathe in that fine air That pure severity of perfect lightö I yearned for warmth and colour which I found In Lancelot.

—Tennyson

  If I should die, thinkonly this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich dust a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

—Brooke, Rupert Chawner

A wind sways in the pines, And below Not a breath of wild air; Still as the mosses that glow On the flooring and over the lines Of the roots here and there. The pine tree drops its dead; Theyare quiet, as under the sea. Overhead, overhead Rushes life in a race, As the clouds the clouds chase; And we go, And we drop like the fruits of the tree, Even we, Even so.

—Meredith, George

Beauty is but a flower Which wrinkles will devour; Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair; Dust hath close'  d Helen's eye. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us!

—Nashe,Thomas

And nowe in the winter, when men kill the fat swine They get the bladder and blow it great and thin, With many beans and peason put within: It ratleth, soundeth, and shineth clere and fayre While it is throwen and caste up in the ayre, Each one contendeth and hath a great delite With foote and with hands the bladder for to smite; If it fall to grounde, they lifte it up agayne, But this waye to labour they count in no payne.

—Anonymous

Luftslotter,öde er safi   nemme at ty o‹  u" nd i, de.Og nemme at bygge ogsafi  . Castles intheairötheyare so easy totake refuge in. And so easy to build, too.

—Ibsen, HenrikJohan

   Clear the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! take the stonefromthestone, taketheskinfromthearm, takethe muscle from bone, and wash them.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

You will see Coleridgeöhe who sits obscure In the exceeding lustre and the pure Intense irradiation of a mind, Which, through its own internal lighting blind, Flags wearily through darkness and despairö A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, A hooded eagle among blinking owlsö You will see Huntöone of those happy souls Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom This world would smell like what it isöa tomb.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs.

—Frost, Robert Lee

Que ton vers soit la bonne aventure EŁ  parse au vent crispe¤   du matin Qui va fleurant la menthe et le thym. Et tout le reste est litte¤  rature. May your verse be a glorious adventure Strewn by the crisp morning air Which helps the mint and the thyme grow. Everything else is mere literature.

—Verlaine, Paul

The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

Dust in the air suspended Marks the place where a story ended.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who hasnever learned towalk forwards. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.

—Roosevelt, Franklin D(elano)

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!

—Hopkins, SirAnthony

  O, he flies through the air with the greatest of ease, This daring young man on the flying trapeze.

—Leybourne, George pseudonym of  Joseph Saunders

   Purpose apart, perched like an umpire, dozes, Dreams golden balls whirring through indigo. Clay blurs the whitewash but day still encloses The albinos, bonded in their flick and flow. Playing in musicked gravity, the pair Score liquid Euclids in foolscaps of air.

—Avison, Margaret

I am very fond of fresh air and royalties.

—Ashford, Daisy Mary Margaret

I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible.From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.

—Owens,JesseJames Cleveland

Earth hath not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will; Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

—Wordsworth,William

   When I lie tangled in her hair, And fettered to her eye; The Gods, that wanton in the air Know no such liberty.

—Lovelace, Richard

   Your anger was a climate I inhabited like a desert in a dry frigid weather of high thin air and ivory sun, sand dunes the wind lifted into stinging clouds that blinded and choked me where the only ice was in the blood.

—Piercy, Marge

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his sail Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carollings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through 382 His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

—Hardy,Thomas

Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.

—Plath, Sylvia

Inebriate of Airöam Iö And Debauchee of Dewö Reelingöthro endless summer daysö From inns of Molten Blueö

—Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth

Lyndon gave me that instead of the Hawaii air route.

—Rockefeller, Laurance S

   Liberty isthemotherof virtue, and if women be, by their very constitution, slaves, and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they must ever languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in nature.

—Wollstonecraft, Mary also known as Mrs Godwin

The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre. Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun, And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

—Spender, Sir Stephen Harold

Tawny are the leaves turned but they still hold, And it is harvest; what shall this land produce? A meagre hill of kernels, a runnel of juice; Declension looks from our land, it is old. Therefore let us assemble, dry, gray, spare, And mild as yellow air.

—Ransom,John Crowe

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair, And dream about the great and their pride; They have spoken against you everywhere, But weigh this song with the great and their pride; I made it out of a mouthful of air, Their children's children shall say they have lied.

—Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)

My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require.

—Elgar, Sir Edward

The creation of music is just as natural as the air we breathe.I believemusic isreallya freething, and any way you can enjoy it, you should.

—Coleman, Ornette

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.

—Collins,William

PoetryontheairsoundsliketheMusesinstripedtrousers.

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

  It is essential that broadcasting be surrounded with such safeguards as will prevent the air becoming what might be described as an atmospheric billboard.

—Thornton, Sir Henry

Information, freefrominterestorprejudice, freefromthe vanity of the writer or the influence of a Government, is as necessary to the human mind as pure air and water to the human body.

—Rees-Mogg,William Rees-Mogg, Baron

   Neat Marlowe, bathed in theThespian springs, Had in him those brave translunary things That the first poets had; his raptures were All air and fire, which made his verses clear, For that fine madness still he did retain Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.

—Drayton, Michael

We redesigned everything but the air in the tires.

—Caldwell, Philip

Get yourroom full of good air, thenshut up thewindows and keep it. It will keep for years. Anyway, don't keep using your lungs all the time. Let them rest.

—Leacock, Stephen Butler

Rose of all Roses,Rose of all the World! The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled Above the tide of hours, trouble the air, And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care.

—Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)

Fromthefirst place of liquid darkness, within thesecond place of air and light, I set down the following record with itsmixture of fact and truths and memories oftruths and its direction always toward theThird Place, where the starting point is myth.

—Frame,Janet Paterson also known as Jean PatersonFrame

I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair, Floating, like a vapour, on the soft summer air.

—Foster, Stephen Collins

Just as a stone flung into the water becomes the centre and cause of many circles, and as sound diffuses itself in circles in the air; so any object, placed in the luminous atmosphere, diffuses itself in circles, and fills the surrounding air with infinite images of itself.

—Leonardo daVinci

Thus I hurl My dazzling spells into the spongyair.

—Milton,John

Fabulous the insects Stud the air Or walk on running water, Klee-drawn saints And bright as angels are.

—Wilkinson, Anne

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore ishewearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

—Housman, A(lfred) E(dward)

Wildness and silence disappeared fromthe countryside, sweetness fell from the air, not because anyone wished them to vanish or fall but because throughways had to floor the meadows with cement to carry the automobiles which advancing technology produced.

—MacLeish, Archibald

The whole wide world is a cathedral; I stand inside, the air is calm, And from afar at times there reaches My ear the echo of a psalm.

—Pasternak, Boris

As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert: All was black, In heaven no single star, on earth no track; A brooding hush without a stir or note; The air so thick it clotted in my throat.

—Thomson,James pseudonym 'BV',ByssheVanolis

The pure marble air.

—Milton,John

I cannot remember things I once read A few friends, but theyare in cities. Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup Looking down for miles Through high still air.

—Snyder, Gary Sherman

The people die so, that now it seems theyare fain to carry the dead to be buried by daylight, the nights not sufficing to do it in. And my Lord Mayor commands people to be within at 9 at night, all (as they say) that the sick may have liberty to go abroad for ayre.

—Pepys, Samuel

The American character looks always as if it just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.

—McCarthy,Joseph R(aymond)

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beautyand love lay bare.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sun-beams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.

—Swift,Jonathan

The evil of it is, that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushingofthelarger worlds, and cannot seethemasthey circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

   You stars that reigned at my nativity, Whose influence hath allotted death and hell, Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist, Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud, That when you vomit forth into the air, My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths, So that my soul may but ascend to heaven.

—Marlowe, Christopher

I was born into wealth and there was nothing I could do about it. It was there like food or air.

—Rockefeller, David

We wove a web in childhood, A web of sunny air; We dug a spring in infancy Of water pure and fair; We sowed in youth a mustard seed, We cut an almond rod; We are now grown up to riper ageö Are they withered in the sod?

—Bronte«  , Charlotte

Belove'  d, what are names but air? Choose thou whatever suits the line; Call me Sappho, call me Chloris, Call me Lalage or Doris, Only, only call meThine.

—Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Ah, yet would God this flesh of mine might be Where air might wash and long leaves cover me; Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea.

—Swinburne, Algernon Charles

   Wild air, world-mothering air, Nestling me everywhere.

—Hopkins, SirAnthony

People ask me why I ride with my bottom in the air.Well, I've got to put it somewhere.

—Piggott, Lester Keith

I must confess I am a fop in my heart; ill customs influence my very senses, and I have been so used to affectation that without the help of the air of the court what is natural cannot touch me.

—Etherege, Sir George

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light; While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train, And rudely rends thy robes.

—Collins,William