Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBEwas an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work. He was appointed the seventeenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the United States Library of Congress in 1965...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 February 1909
eye boys games
What the eye delights in, no longer dictates My greed to enjoy: boys, grass, the fenced-off deer. It leaves those figures that distantly play On the horizon's rim: they sign their peace, in games.
morning spring simple
What is precious is never to forget The delight of the blood drawn from ancient springs Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth ; Never to deny its pleasure in the simple morning light, Nor its grave evening demand for love; Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
littles chaos rich
When you read and understand a poem, comprehending its rich and formal meanings, then you master chaos a little.
skills achievement judgement
All one can do is to achieve nakedness, to be what one is with all one's faculties and perceptions, strengthened by all the skill which one can acquire. And then to stand before the judgement of time.
light killers
Death to the killers, bringing light to life.
life heart thinking
I think of those who were truly great. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
reading civilization creative
But reading is not idleness?it is the passive, receptive side of civilization without which the active and creative world would be meaningless. It is the immortal spirit of the dead realised within the bodies of the living. It is sacramental.
eye pairs body
My single pair of eyes Contain the universe they see; Their mirrored multiplicity Is packed into a hollow body Where I reflect the many, in my one.
struggle writing confusion
I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.
fog noise spirit
Never allow gradually the traffic to smother with noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
lines one-line speak
Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest he has to discover for himself.
men goal hunger
No one Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally. Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man.
thinking corridors
I think continually of those who were truly great.
imagination imagine knows
All that you can imagine you already know.