American novelist & poet (1869-1954)
Those people who think of their departed friends as being all-wise, how disappointed they would be if they could know that the life on this side is only an extension of the life on earth! If the thoughts and desires there have been only for material pleasures, the thoughts and desires here are likely to be the same.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Give me to drink the poison of thy breast--
Dark cruel wine from grapes of passion pressed--
Till I am drunk beyond delirium's dream
In that dim utter deep where men may rest.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
I saw a bird on a bough and wondered if he were dreaming. And then another came; the two sat long together and not a note they sang. The sun went down in the west, and the shadows wrapt their veils around the shivering earth; the moon arose behind the mountains, the full-faced harvest moon that turns all things to magic. The two birds on the bough were dark against the moon's gold face. And still no note they sang—their silence thrilled the world. And I forgot the meadows and the hills, the trees and the golden harvest; for I knew that those two dreaming birds were the heart of a miracle.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
If you knew the meaning of light you would yourself be a light in a dark place.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
I am often merry at the jests of the constellations.
Did you fancy that the stars were always serious?
Only the dull never laugh, and the stars are very bright.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Deep Love is slow of speech and void of art;
Silence and timid tears reveal his heart.
But shallow Love is ever eloquent
To mouth his meagre passion -- and depart.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
There are horrors out here—far worse than the horrors on earth.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Imagination has great power. If you make a picture in the mind, the vibrations of the body may adjust to it if the will is directed that way, as in thoughts of health or sickness.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
And after all our toils and dreams and prayers,
'Tis only Love for which the future cares;
Labour and fame are steps along Love's way,
And art is but the garment that he wears.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
I met one man who refused to speak of the earth, and was always talking about "going on." I reminded him that if he went on far enough he would come back to the place from which he started.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Then I sped across the prairies of ether and stood upon the moon. It was no longer luminous, its hardness hurt my feet; And I found that it had nothing either to sell or give me; Its empty frankness was brutal as a blow.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
The hospitality of the universe is famous among the comets;
There is always an extra plate for the late-comer and a flower for his buttonhole.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Is there no anodyne despair may buy,
No draught of dreamless sleep for such as I?
Discordant singer in the choir of Love,
Who neither cares to live nor dares to die.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Bear this in mind: I merely tell you stories, as an earthly traveler would tell, of the things I see. Sometimes my interpretation of them may be wrong.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
One is only safe with shadows if one carries light within.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
We have a bitter power who laugh at pain,
Who laugh and laugh -- for tears are shed in vain.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
So still is Love he hears the farthest sound:
The footfall of the seasons in their round,
The soft etheric swish of the rushing spheres,
The murmur of the mute things underground.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Life can be so free here! There is none of that machinery of living which makes people on earth such slaves. In our world a man is held only by his thoughts. If they are free, he is free.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Philosophy will go on being taught in the world and all over the world. Only a few, perhaps, will reach the deeps of it in this life; but a seed sown to-day may bear fruit long hence.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
But they who drink the Muse's breath
Pay for the draught with many tears--
Their destiny until their death
To seek her shadow down the years.
ELSA BARKER
The Frozen Grail and Other Poems