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
Our sorrows are the golden grain
Of the great reaper--Art.
ELSA BARKER
The Frozen Grail and Other Poems
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
For me the cosmic aeons lie complete,
O Love, between thy forehead and thy feet!
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Thy love is like deep waters all around--
Warm pulsing waters, in whose brooding sound
The lone wail of my heart is lulled with dreams,
And the far clamour of the world is drowned.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
I know a logic beyond time and space; that is why I am so illogical, why space cannot hold me nor time make me old.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
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
Only the Lord of Change has endless sway.
The vanished Love of our dead yesterday.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
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
Ah, the joy of loving a sleeping thing! All true lovers know that wonder. Sleep is a great magician. His spells are woven in the darkness between the worlds; His philtres are made of herbs that grow by the great river of forgetfulness which flows by the throne of the All-knowing.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
The discords of dragon-laughter are often heard in the orchestra of God.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Indomitable must be God's desire
To realize Life's secret and acquire
Mastery, when he sends you, one by one,
Eternally, to question the bright sun
And the dark earth and the indifferent stars!
ELSA BARKER
The Frozen Grail and Other Poems
No desert waste is lonelier than I.
The arid pain of Love has burned me dry.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Sweet is the oblivion of sleep;
But sweeter far is the sleep beyond oblivion.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
I love to love, but I know not jealousy. If you find another fairer than I, I shall weary of you and go love him -- So beware, if you would hold me!
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
One is only safe with shadows if one carries light within.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
For a body of dust is a limit to the loving of a soul.
It sees a face and finds it fair, forgetting the myriad who are unseen.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
When I entreated Life to make me wise,
It drew aside Love's broidered veil of lies;
And perilous Beauty, undivined before,
Beckoned me from the mazes of his eyes.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
To get, one must give. That is the Law.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man