Love is a universal migraine
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.
Robert Graves-Symptoms of Love
Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties. The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
Robert Graves - Address, January 1960, to the Oxford University Philological Society. "Poetic Gold," Oxford Addresses on Poetry (1962). Graves had been awarded a gold medal for services to poetry by the National Poetry Society of America.
Kill if you must, but never hate:
Man is but grass and hate is blight,
The sun will scorch you soon or late,
Die wholesome then, since you must fight.
Robert Graves- from Hate not, Fear not
Love is a universal migraine
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.
Robert Graves-Symptoms of Love
