American novelist & poet (1869-1954)
Do not fear death; but stay on earth as long as you can.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
You can do so much for me by lending me your hand occasionally, that I wonder why you shrink from it.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
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
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
Sweet is the oblivion of sleep;
But sweeter far is the sleep beyond oblivion.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
There is a sore spot in the heart of Truth, and no balm can ever heal it.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Call no man free nor count his bondage done,
Though he be master of unminted gold
With kings to do him homage, if his hold
Be not so strong on the immortal sun--The shining, heliocentric Self—that none
May loosen it.
ELSA BARKER
The Frozen Grail and Other Poems
The pain of Love has poisoned all the day.
Pitiless Love, that lures but to betray!
And pitiless the whisper of the soul:
Like songs and worlds, this too shall pass away.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
I have never given my soul to the keeping of an earthly body,
And so I can sing at all times and seasons.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
I know that I am a charmer, for when I wait Time always stands still.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
If a man understands that his recent sojourn on earth was merely the latest of a long series of lives, and if he concentrates his mind towards recovering the memories of the distant past, he can recover them.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man