American novelist & poet (1869-1954)
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
Then I sped across the prairies of ether and stood upon the moon. It was no longer luminous, its hardness hurt my feet; And I found that it had nothing either to sell or give me; Its empty frankness was brutal as a blow.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
It is a long road that leads to eternity, and the inns for travelers are few.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Imagination has great power. If you make a picture in the mind, the vibrations of the body may adjust to it if the will is directed that way, as in thoughts of health or sickness.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
She is the idol of the wise,
The mistress of the rhyming race;
But pain lurks in her luring eyes,
And bitter-sweet is her embrace.
ELSA BARKER
The Frozen Grail and Other Poems
Concentration is the secret of power.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
There is a crevice in Love's garden wall
Where mandrakes thrive, with lilies rank and tall;
Where stealthy Death peers through a purple veil
In madmen's eyes, and strange worms crawl and crawl.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
As to the use of will-power in your present everyday problems, there are two ways of using the will. One may concentrate upon a definite plan, and bring it into effect or not according to the amount of force at one’s disposal; or one may will that the best and highest and wisest plan possible shall be demonstrated by the subconscious forces in the self and in other selves. The latter is a commanding of all environment for a special purpose, instead of commanding, or attempting to command, a fragment of it.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
I have followed Silence from the belt of Orion to Berenice's curls -- then lost it in the laughter of my soul.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
He who remembers, sees; and he who sees, can fly.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
It has been said that he is a fool who works for philosophy instead of making philosophy work for him; but a man cannot give to the world even a little of a true philosophy without reaping sevenfold himself.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
Sometimes I love thee so I wish thee dead.
I would devour thy being as my bread;
Would drain thy hidden veins dry, as of wine,
Red drop by drop, for all my heart has bled!
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
It is undoubtedly true that there is no spirit without substance, no substance without spirit, latent or expressed; but a painting of a man may seem at a distance to be a man.
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
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
If you have something to give -- throw it out of the window;
The one who needs it will come along with eyes bent on the ground.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Even a cricket knows the difference between a man and an angel; For a man looks not at the ground whereon he walks, he crushes many a life; While the passing of an angel leaves all the world a-thrill.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Wisdom is a tree of slow growth; the rings around its trunk are earthly lives, and the grooves between are the periods between lives. Who grieves that an acorn is slow in becoming an oak?
ELSA BARKER
Letters from a Living Dead Man
I will give you a charm against sorrow: smile at the kisses of Pain.
She is a sensitive lover and likes not to be flouted.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
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