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:

    Who will remember happiness?
    I can recall that they are dead.
    I know that heaven cracked one day,
    And only God knows what they said.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    And spying far away
    Upon the Tibetan plain
    A limping caravan,
    Dive, and exterminate
    The Lama, late
    Survival of old pain.
    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)

    Mary McDonald, you giggled as you passed—
    I wondered what the boy with hairy chest
    Carved on the wall of his inexpensive spirit
    Memorial to your infinite unrest.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    The faceless head lay still. I could not run
    Or walk, but stood. Alone in the public clearing
    This private thing was owned by all the town,
    Though never claimed by us within my hearing.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)