Quotes by George Sterling

A prison becomes a home when you have the key.

And fragile is thy tenure of this worldStill haunted by the monstrous ghost of God.(To Science)

And starward drifts the stricken world,Lone in unalterable gloomDead, with a universe for tomb,Dark, and to vaster darkness whirled.(“The Testimony of the Suns”)

The candle glimmers but an hour. The nightLooms in its ancient hunger. Would you knowThe tragedy of human love and need?Gaze on the stars, then on a brothers face!

Be sure that head and heart were laidIn wisdom down, content to die.Be sure he faced the Starless SkyUnduped, unmurmuring, unafraid.(“The Passing of Bierce”)

Till her appointed course be run;Till on the darkness faint her breathFlown to the silent void, and DeathSit crowned upon the ashen sun.(“The Testimony of the Suns”)

As a breath on glass, -As witch-fires that burn,The gods and monsters pass,Are dust, and return.(“The Face of the Skies”)

O Space and Time and stars at strife,How dreadful your infinity!Shrined by your termless trinity,How strange, how terrible, is life!(“The Testimony of the Suns”)

The pathway traced with blood and tears,and dust of all our fathers dead,Whose backward footsteps, wandering, red,Fade to the mist of nameless years.(“The Testimony of the Suns”)

A little while, their hunger unfulfilled,The mothlike worlds flit round the guttering sun.(Ephemera)

Within its gates I heard the soundOf winds in cypress caverns caughtOf huddling tress that moaned, and soughtTo whisper what their roots had found.(“A Dream of Fear”)

Where got she her sullen mouthAnd where her swaying form?Would she live on eggs and applesWhen the blood of men is warm?(“The Young Witch”)

What silence rules the ghostly hoursThat guard the close of human sleep!(“The Testimony of the Suns”)

Or sit they girt by laws unknownWhereto the senses serve as bars –With fire of unrecorded starsThat light a heaven not our own?(“The Testimony of the Suns”)