John Crowe Ransom

God have mercy on the sinner
Who must write with no dinner,
No gravy and no grub,
No pewter and no pub,
No belly and no bowels,
Only consonants and vowels.

John Crowe Ransom (April 30, 1888 – July 3, 1974) was a southern American poet, essayist and academic. He was prominent among the Fugitives, the Southern Agrarians and the American exponents of the New Criticism.

Quotes

Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
Without believing a word...
Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;
And I will cry with my loud lips, and publish
Beauty which all our power shall never establish,
It is so frail.

• Twirling your blue skirts crossing the sward
  Under the towers of your seminary
  Go listen to your teachers, old and contrary
  Without believing a word.
  Tie the white filets then about your hair
  And think no more of what will come to pass
  Than bluebirds that go flying in the air
  Or chattering on the grass.
  Practice your beauty, blue girls, ere it fail,
  And I with my loud lips will publish
  Beauty that all our powers cannot establish
  It is so frail.
  For I could tell you a story which is true;
  I know a lady with a terrible tongue,
  Blear eyes fallen from blue,
  All her perfections tarnished —
  Yet it is not long
  Since she was lovelier than any of you.
  • "Blue Girls", line 13, from Two Gentlemen in Bonds (1927)

• And weeping fast as she had breath
  Janet implored us, "Wake her from her sleep!"
  And would not be instructed in how deep
  Was the forgetful kingdom of death.
  • "Janet Waking", line 25, from Two Gentlemen in Bonds (1927)

• God have mercy on the sinner
  Who must write with no dinner,
  No gravy and no grub,
  No pewter and no pub,
  No belly and no bowels,
  Only consonants and vowels.
  • "A Survey of Literature", last lines, from The Lyric South (1928)

Chills and Fever (1924)

• And a wandering beauty is a blade out of its scabbard.
  You know how dangerous, gentlemen of threescore?
  May you know it yet ten more.
  • "Judith of Bethulia", line 4

• Here lies a lady of beauty and high degree.
  Of chills and fever she died, of fever and chills,
  The delight of her husband, her aunts, an infant of three,
  And of medicos marveling sweetly on her ills.
  • "Here Lies a Lady", stanza 1

• Sweet ladies, long may ye bloom, and toughly I hope ye may thole,
  But was she not lucky? In flowers and lace and mourning,
  In love and great honour we bade God rest her soul
  After six little spaces of chill, and six of burning.
  • "Here Lies a Lady", stanza 4

• Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
  Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
  A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
  And in the wood the furious winter blowing.
  • "Winter Remembered", line 1