Quote #5

We shall not meet again: over the wave Our ways divide, and yours is straight and endless - But mine is short and crooked to the grave: Yet what of these dark crowds, amid whose flow I battle like a rock, aloof and friendless - Are not their generations, vague and endless, The waves, the strides, the feet on which I go?

More from Roy Campbell

  1. The timeless, surly patience of the serf That moves the nearest to the naked earth And ploughs down palaces, and thrones, and towers.
  2. With white tails smoking free, Long streaming manes, and arching necks, they show Their kinship to their sisters of the sea - And forward h…
  3. The frost stings sweetly with a burning kiss As intimate as love, as cold as death.
  4. Of all the clever people round me here I most delight in Me - Mine is the only voice I care to hear, And mine the only face I like to see.
  5. Translations (like wives) are seldom strictly faithful if they are in the least attractive.
  6. You praise the firm restraint with which they write - I'm with you there, of course: They use the snaffle and the curb all right, But where…
  7. South Africa, renowned both far and wide For politics and little else beside.
  8. Roy Campbell was one of the very few great poets of our time. His poems are of great stature, and have a giant's strength and power of move…

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