William Empson Quote
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.It is not the effort nor the failure tires.The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.It is not your system or clear sight that millsDown small to the consequence a life requires;Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.They bled an old dog dry yet the exchange rillsOf young dog blood gave but a month's desires.The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.It is the Chinese tombs and the slag hillsUsurp the soil, and not the soil retires.Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills.The complete fire is death. From partial firesThe waste remains, the waste remains and kills.It is the poems you have lost, the illsFrom missing dates, at which the heart expires.Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.- 'Missing Dates
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.It is not the effort nor the failure tires.The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.It is not your system or clear sight that millsDown small to the consequence a life requires;Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.They bled an old dog dry yet the exchange rillsOf young dog blood gave but a month's desires.The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.It is the Chinese tombs and the slag hillsUsurp the soil, and not the soil retires.Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills.The complete fire is death. From partial firesThe waste remains, the waste remains and kills.It is the poems you have lost, the illsFrom missing dates, at which the heart expires.Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.- 'Missing Dates
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About William Empson
Jonathan Bate has written that the three greatest English literary critics of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries are Johnson, Hazlitt and Empson, "not least because they are the funniest".