American novelist & poet (1869-1954)
There is a crevice in Love's garden wall
Where mandrakes thrive, with lilies rank and tall;
Where stealthy Death peers through a purple veil
In madmen's eyes, and strange worms crawl and crawl.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
It is a long road that leads to eternity, and the inns for travelers are few.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
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
It is undoubtedly true that there is no spirit without substance, no substance without spirit, latent or expressed; but a painting of a man may seem at a distance to be a man.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Sometimes I love thee so I wish thee dead.
I would devour thy being as my bread;
Would drain thy hidden veins dry, as of wine,
Red drop by drop, for all my heart has bled!
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Deep Love is slow of speech and void of art;
Silence and timid tears reveal his heart.
But shallow Love is ever eloquent
To mouth his meagre passion -- and depart.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Always it seems
That only a thin veil--
Sheer as the music of the nightingale--
Trembles and streams
Between me and the mystery of dreams.
ELSA BARKER
The Frozen Grail and Other Poems
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
But they who drink the Muse's breath
Pay for the draught with many tears--
Their destiny until their death
To seek her shadow down the years.
ELSA BARKER
The Frozen Grail and Other Poems
She is the idol of the wise,
The mistress of the rhyming race;
But pain lurks in her luring eyes,
And bitter-sweet is her embrace.
ELSA BARKER
The Frozen Grail and Other Poems
Concentration is the secret of power.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Even a cricket knows the difference between a man and an angel; For a man looks not at the ground whereon he walks, he crushes many a life; While the passing of an angel leaves all the world a-thrill.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
And after all our toils and dreams and prayers,
'Tis only Love for which the future cares;
Labour and fame are steps along Love's way,
And art is but the garment that he wears.
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
My friend, there is nothing to fear in death. It is no harder than a trip to a foreign country—the first trip—to one who has grown oldish and settled in the habits of his own more or less narrow corner of the world.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
It has been said that he is a fool who works for philosophy instead of making philosophy work for him; but a man cannot give to the world even a little of a true philosophy without reaping sevenfold himself.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
If you have something to give -- throw it out of the window;
The one who needs it will come along with eyes bent on the ground.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
There are horrors out here—far worse than the horrors on earth.
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
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