Thomas Sturge Moore

British playwright, poet and artist (1870-1944)

Thomas Sturge Moore (4 March 187018 July 1944) was an English poet, art-historian, dramatist and wood-engraver.

Thomas Sturge Moore

Quotes

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  • Then, cleaving the grass, gazelles appear
    (The gentler dolphins of kindlier waves)
    With sensitive heads alert of ear;
    Frail crowds that a delicate hearing saves.
    • "The Gazelles", line 13; from The Centaur's Booty (London: Duckworth, 1903) p. ix.
  • For milkmaids and queens and gipsy-princesses
    Dream and kiss blindfold or starve upon guesses.
    • "Reason Enough", line 7; from The Sea is Kind (London: Grant Richards, 1914) p. 75.
  • Break free, my soul, good manners are thy tomb!
    • "Reason Enough", line 18; from The Sea is Kind (London: Grant Richards, 1914) p. 75.
  • "Shells with lip, or tooth, or bleeding gum,
    Tell-tale shells, and shells that whisper 'Come',
    Shells that stammer, blush, and yet are dumb – "
    "O let me hear!"
    • "A Duet", line 5; from The Sea is Kind (London: Grant Richards, 1914) p. 78.

Criticism

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  • In my opinion Mr. Moore is a greater poet than Mr. Yeats. He has lived obscurely, and has not displayed Mr. Yeats's talent for self-dramatization; for these reasons and others he has never become a public figure or a popular writer.
    • Yvor Winters Uncollected Essays and Reviews (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1973) p. 139.
  • A sheep in sheep's clothing.
    • Edmund Gosse, quoted in Ferris Greenslet Under the Bridge: An Autobiography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943) p. 104.
    • Sometimes misattributed to Yeats.
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