George Sterling Quotes

A prison becomes a home when you have the key.

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

The candle glimmers but an hour. The night
Looms in its ancient hunger. Would you know
The tragedy of human love and need?
Gaze on the stars, then on a brother's face!

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

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

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

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 father's 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")