Theodore Roethke Quote

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;I hear my echo in the echoing wood--A lord of nature weeping to a tree.I live between the heron and the wren,Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.What's madness but nobility of soulAt odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!I know the purity of pure despair,My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.That place among the rocks--is it a cave,Or winding path? The edge is what I have.A steady storm of correspondences! A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,And in broad day the midnight comes again!A man goes far to find out what he is--Death of the self in a long, tearless night,All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is ?A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.

Theodore Roethke

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;I hear my echo in the echoing wood--A lord of nature weeping to a tree.I live between the heron and the wren,Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.What's madness but nobility of soulAt odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!I know the purity of pure despair,My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.That place among the rocks--is it a cave,Or winding path? The edge is what I have.A steady storm of correspondences! A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,And in broad day the midnight comes again!A man goes far to find out what he is--Death of the self in a long, tearless night,All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is ?A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.

Related Quotes

About Theodore Roethke

Theodore Huebner Roethke ( RET-kee; May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book The Waking, and the annual National Book Award for Poetry on two occasions: in 1959 for Words for the Wind, and posthumously in 1965 for The Far Field. His work was characterized by its introspection, rhythm and natural imagery.
Roethke was praised by former U.S. Poet Laureate and author James Dickey as "in my opinion the greatest poet this country has yet produced." He was also a respected poetry teacher, and taught at the University of Washington for fifteen years. His students from that period won two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and two others were nominated for the award. "He was probably the best poetry-writing teacher ever," said poet Richard Hugo, who studied under Roethke.