I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round read more

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already-the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.

I quickly laugh at everything for fear of having to cry.

I quickly laugh at everything for fear of having to cry.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am read more

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad

Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad

There is no such thing as happiness, only lesser shades of melancholy.

There is no such thing as happiness, only lesser shades of melancholy.

Where the mind is past hope, the heart is past shame.

Where the mind is past hope, the heart is past shame.

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness

Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness