Allen Tate

Allen Tate

John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979) was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1944.

Read more about Allen Tate:  Life, Literary Work, Political Writing

Famous quotes by allen tate:

    I’ve heard the wolves scuffle, and said: So this
    Is man; so what better conclusion is there
    The day will not follow night, and the heart
    Of man has a little dignity, but less patience
    Than a wolf’s....
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    These emblems of twilight have seen at length,
    And the man red-faced and tall seen, leaning
    In the day of his strength
    Not as a pine, but the stiff form
    Against the west pillar....
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    Then one will say, ‘He is not dead, maybe,
    Who was mortality’s unshaken lover
    Who loved the spring upon the Tennessee,
    The hushed fall and, again, the coming clover.’
    None will recall, not knowing, the twisted roads
    Where the mind wanders till the heart corrodes.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    I lay the mind’s contents
    Bare, as upon a table,
    And ask, in a time of war,
    Whether there is still
    To a mind frivolously dull
    Anything worth living for.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    ‘The god has not yet answered to our pity
    For the black vision and tangle in her brains,
    Nor is there knowing soever in the city
    Of the red histories that throbbed in her blue veins.’
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)