Robert Graves Quotes
Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony.
Graves, Robert. "The Next War." Fairies and Fusiliers, William Heinemann, 1917.
Prior to whites settling in America, various Indian tribes had a long history of fierce fighting for control of Kentucky. The Transylvania Land company negotiated for the “rights” to Kentucky. Dragging Canoe, who opposed the treaty, argued that the land had a bad history and would be very difficult to settle. Poet Theodore O’Hara described Kentuckians as “Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground” in his poem, The Bivouac of the Dead.
This is a very controversial Franklin quotation. In fact, Franklin never sent this letter to Strahan, but it is one of the most famous of the Franklin quotations. It was even famous in 1775. Franklin saw to it that copies of his “letter” reached most American newspaper editors, many of who reprinted it. It was not the first time that an American politician had made quotations for domestic consumption only, and it certainly was not the last. So Franklin never said this to his friend Strahan, but he did claim that he did to all who Americans who would listen. The result is that Franklin developed a reputation for really ‘telling off those Englishmen.’ This was important for him because since he had many friends and admirers in England, he was suspect to many anti-British Americans.
Robert von Ranke Graves was a British poet, historical novelist, critic, and classicist. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celticists and students of Irish mythology. Graves produced more than 140 works in his lifetime. His poems, his translations and innovative analysis of the Greek myths, his memoir of his early life—including his role in World War I—Good-Bye to All That, and his speculative study of poetic inspiration, The White Goddess, have never been out of print.
