Ennui
Tea-leaves thwart those who court catastrophe,
Designing futures where nothing will occur.
Cross the gypsy’s palm and yawning she
Will still predict no perils left to conquer.

Jeopardy is jejune now: the naïve knight
Finds ogres out-of-date and dragons unheard-of,
While blasé princesses indict
Tilts at terror as downright absurd.

The beast in Jamesian grove will never jump,
Compelling hero’s dull career to crisis;
And when insouciant angels play God’s trump,
While bored arena crowds for once look eager,
Hoping toward havoc, neither pleas nor prices
Shall coax from doom’s blank door lady or tiger.

Poetry, Boredom, Fantasy, Adventure

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Ennui
Tea-leaves thwart those who court catastrophe,
Designing futures where nothing will occur.
Cross the gypsy’s palm and yawning she
Will still predict no perils left to conquer.

Jeopardy is jejune now: the naïve knight
Finds ogres out-of-date and dragons unheard-of,
While blasé princesses indict
Tilts at terror as downright absurd.

The beast in Jamesian grove will never jump,
Compelling hero’s dull career to crisis;
And when insouciant angels play God’s trump,
While bored arena crowds for once look eager,
Hoping toward havoc, neither pleas nor prices
Shall coax from doom’s blank door lady or tiger.

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Explore more quotes by Sylvia Plath

"I love the people,' I said. 'I have room in me for love, and for ever so many little lives."

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"What a man is is an arrow into the future, and what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from."

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"I don't know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig-tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to the earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach."

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"I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited."

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"This woman lawyer said the best men wanted to be pure for their wives, and even if they weren't pure, they wanted to be the ones to teach their wives about sex. Of course they would try to persuade a girl to have sex and say they would marry her later, but assoon as she gave in, they would lose all respect for her and start saying that if she did that with them she would do that with other men and they would end up by making her lifemiserable."

Relationship

"When I say I must write, I don't mean I must publish. There is a great difference. the important thing is the chaotic form given to my chaotic experience, which is, as it was for James Joyce, my kind of religion, and necessary for me...as the confession and absolution for a Catholic in church."

Creativity

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Exlpore more Poetry quotes

"For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming."

"I don't think Auden liked my poetry very much, he's very Anglican."

"When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

"Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance."

"It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us."

"Old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know."

"Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry."

"Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry."

"We traveled long and forgot why poetry was invented."

"Otherwise I don't read much adult poetry at all, because I'm not smart enough and mostly I don't get it."

Explore more quotes by Sylvia Plath

"I love the people,' I said. 'I have room in me for love, and for ever so many little lives."

"What a man is is an arrow into the future, and what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from."

"I don't know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig-tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to the earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach."

"Talking about my fears to others feeds it."

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"I must get my soul back from you, I am killing my flesh without it."

"It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther."

"When I say I must write, I don't mean I must publish. There is a great difference. the important thing is the chaotic form given to my chaotic experience, which is, as it was for James Joyce, my kind of religion, and necessary for me...as the confession and absolution for a Catholic in church."