American novelist & poet (1869-1954)
Ah, the joy of loving a sleeping thing! All true lovers know that wonder. Sleep is a great magician. His spells are woven in the darkness between the worlds; His philtres are made of herbs that grow by the great river of forgetfulness which flows by the throne of the All-knowing.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
To get, one must give. That is the Law.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
The difference between a painter and a musician, or between a poet and a novelist, is not a difference of qualities in the entity itself; for each unit contains everything except quantity, and thus has the possibilities of development along any line chosen by its will.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
When I entreated Life to make me wise,
It drew aside Love's broidered veil of lies;
And perilous Beauty, undivined before,
Beckoned me from the mazes of his eyes.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
I have never given my soul to the keeping of an earthly body,
And so I can sing at all times and seasons.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
There is a sore spot in the heart of Truth, and no balm can ever heal it.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Call no man free nor count his bondage done,
Though he be master of unminted gold
With kings to do him homage, if his hold
Be not so strong on the immortal sun--The shining, heliocentric Self—that none
May loosen it.
ELSA BARKER
The Frozen Grail and Other Poems
The pain of Love has poisoned all the day.
Pitiless Love, that lures but to betray!
And pitiless the whisper of the soul:
Like songs and worlds, this too shall pass away.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
You can do so much for me by lending me your hand occasionally, that I wonder why you shrink from it.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
If a man understands that his recent sojourn on earth was merely the latest of a long series of lives, and if he concentrates his mind towards recovering the memories of the distant past, he can recover them.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
I know that I am a charmer, for when I wait Time always stands still.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel