ELSA BARKER QUOTES III

American novelist & poet (1869-1954)

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

Tags: moon


Those people who think of their departed friends as being all-wise, how disappointed they would be if they could know that the life on this side is only an extension of the life on earth! If the thoughts and desires there have been only for material pleasures, the thoughts and desires here are likely to be the same.

ELSA BARKER

Letters from a Living Dead Man

Tags: life


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

Tags: pain


Immortal love is fearless, and leaves the key of its door on the outside.

ELSA BARKER

Songs of a Vagrom Angel

Tags: leaves


If you knew the meaning of light you would yourself be a light in a dark place.

ELSA BARKER

Songs of a Vagrom Angel

Tags: light


As to the use of will-power in your present everyday problems, there are two ways of using the will. One may concentrate upon a definite plan, and bring it into effect or not according to the amount of force at one’s disposal; or one may will that the best and highest and wisest plan possible shall be demonstrated by the subconscious forces in the self and in other selves. The latter is a commanding of all environment for a special purpose, instead of commanding, or attempting to command, a fragment of it.

ELSA BARKER

Letters from a Living Dead Man

Tags: environment


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

Tags: health


In these unquenchable desires we feel
The thirsty future's dominant appeal;
And through the fire of our impassioned dust
A thousand ancestors their loves reveal.

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

Tags: Men


I have followed Silence from the belt of Orion to Berenice's curls -- then lost it in the laughter of my soul.

ELSA BARKER

Songs of a Vagrom Angel

Tags: laughter


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 lie alone under the mocking sky.
The midnight hours indifferently walk by.

ELSA BARKER

"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love


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

Tags: love


One is only safe with shadows if one carries light within.

ELSA BARKER

Songs of a Vagrom Angel

Tags: light


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

Tags: love


For a body of dust is a limit to the loving of a soul.
It sees a face and finds it fair, forgetting the myriad who are unseen.

ELSA BARKER

Songs of a Vagrom Angel

Tags: soul


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

Tags: destiny


I will give you a charm against sorrow: smile at the kisses of Pain.
She is a sensitive lover and likes not to be flouted.

ELSA BARKER

Songs of a Vagrom Angel

Tags: charm


The hospitality of the universe is famous among the comets;
There is always an extra plate for the late-comer and a flower for his buttonhole.

ELSA BARKER

Songs of a Vagrom Angel

Tags: universe


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