American novelist & poet (1869-1954)
I lie alone under the mocking sky.
The midnight hours indifferently walk by.
ELSA BARKER
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"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
We have a bitter power who laugh at pain,
Who laugh and laugh -- for tears are shed in vain.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Give me to drink the poison of thy breast--
Dark cruel wine from grapes of passion pressed--
Till I am drunk beyond delirium's dream
In that dim utter deep where men may rest.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
If you knew the meaning of light you would yourself be a light in a dark place.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Imagination has great power. If you make a picture in the mind, the vibrations of the body may adjust to it if the will is directed that way, as in thoughts of health or sickness.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
There are horrors out here—far worse than the horrors on earth.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
I met one man who refused to speak of the earth, and was always talking about "going on." I reminded him that if he went on far enough he would come back to the place from which he started.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Life can be so free here! There is none of that machinery of living which makes people on earth such slaves. In our world a man is held only by his thoughts. If they are free, he is free.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
So still is Love he hears the farthest sound:
The footfall of the seasons in their round,
The soft etheric swish of the rushing spheres,
The murmur of the mute things underground.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Then I sped across the prairies of ether and stood upon the moon. It was no longer luminous, its hardness hurt my feet; And I found that it had nothing either to sell or give me; Its empty frankness was brutal as a blow.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
I am often merry at the jests of the constellations.
Did you fancy that the stars were always serious?
Only the dull never laugh, and the stars are very bright.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
I am strong to-day, because I have been long with one who is stronger.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Wisdom is a tree of slow growth; the rings around its trunk are earthly lives, and the grooves between are the periods between lives. Who grieves that an acorn is slow in becoming an oak?
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
For me the cosmic aeons lie complete,
O Love, between thy forehead and thy feet!
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
I saw a bird on a bough and wondered if he were dreaming. And then another came; the two sat long together and not a note they sang. The sun went down in the west, and the shadows wrapt their veils around the shivering earth; the moon arose behind the mountains, the full-faced harvest moon that turns all things to magic. The two birds on the bough were dark against the moon's gold face. And still no note they sang—their silence thrilled the world. And I forgot the meadows and the hills, the trees and the golden harvest; for I knew that those two dreaming birds were the heart of a miracle.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Philosophy will go on being taught in the world and all over the world. Only a few, perhaps, will reach the deeps of it in this life; but a seed sown to-day may bear fruit long hence.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Bear this in mind: I merely tell you stories, as an earthly traveler would tell, of the things I see. Sometimes my interpretation of them may be wrong.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
I would slake my thirst sometimes at the wells of old remembrance;
But the water is so deep I fear to fall therein.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
One is only safe with shadows if one carries light within.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Only the Lord of Change has endless sway.
The vanished Love of our dead yesterday.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love