tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38117991318729818382024-03-05T17:35:50.765-06:00cautionary talesthings i like to readulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-5655357249977383092009-06-21T19:40:00.004-05:002009-06-21T19:58:03.666-05:00Yeats in Your Face: Take Two<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3lgcSdkoxZOsp6WiD3L5ntS_IezqW9Btn3fkXKcjqaSUKGdd3yY0RS-irmnWvCZhuvaj9zmkZSPsI9yk0AUrX4wA7z8Ej5edsqrtfabE1m3_mQ07QIsSgYO7segsw5kuGCYxA35O1rx5_/s1600-h/yeats.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 275px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3lgcSdkoxZOsp6WiD3L5ntS_IezqW9Btn3fkXKcjqaSUKGdd3yY0RS-irmnWvCZhuvaj9zmkZSPsI9yk0AUrX4wA7z8Ej5edsqrtfabE1m3_mQ07QIsSgYO7segsw5kuGCYxA35O1rx5_/s320/yeats.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349949739675369154" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><u><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Anyone who knows Yeats knows "The Second Coming." Well, I hope so, at least. Yes, line three is alluded to in the title of Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, proving that awesomeness knows no cultural boundaries; yes, there are falcons in it; and the phrase "mere anarchy" is enough to make the blood pulse through my veins with renewed vigor (thank you, litotes); but more than all of this, "The Second Coming" stands the test of t</span></u></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><u><span style=";font-family:arial;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">ime because it's an astute observation of chaos in any time when hope seems irrelevant. The well intentioned actions most desired - namely, revolution in any manifestation - will not be one we can predict or even necessarily enjoy should it come. But when Yeats writes, it all melts away into the impotent bleetings of so many sheep without leaving one feeling empty. "The Second Coming" is dark, disarming, and rather self-indulgent in terms of hopelessness. But if art reflects life, it should be done without flinching, wouldn't you agree?</span> </span><br /><br />William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)</u></span><p> <b>THE SECOND COMING</b></p><p> Turning and turning in the widening gyre<br /> The falcon cannot hear the falconer;<br /> Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;<br /> Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,<br /> The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere<br /> The ceremony of innocence is drowned;<br /> The best lack all conviction, while the worst<br /> Are full of passionate intensity. </p><p> Surely some revelation is at hand;<br /> Surely the Second Coming is at hand.<br /> The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out<br /> When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi<br /> Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;<br /> A shape with lion body and the head of a man,<br /> A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,<br /> Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it<br /> Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.<br /> The darkness drops again but now I know<br /> That twenty centuries of stony sleep<br /> Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,<br /> And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,<br /> Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? </p>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-86123362361339248212009-02-26T17:57:00.006-06:002009-02-26T18:14:29.362-06:00Appletinis, anyone?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjC5W8fGLaBBrAbKfRlWjYssAYprZYQjt4s6nu9I_cQbno1ZZVq9ayyhkOtRfY98IZZu6_jr5T2kqJHNhcw82UH-R4zag45b93slVCfKLdwjCGQjTnizbjuLngj1RXgY9z3CNNUB-LXY_o/s1600-h/Robert-Frost-big.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 313px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjC5W8fGLaBBrAbKfRlWjYssAYprZYQjt4s6nu9I_cQbno1ZZVq9ayyhkOtRfY98IZZu6_jr5T2kqJHNhcw82UH-R4zag45b93slVCfKLdwjCGQjTnizbjuLngj1RXgY9z3CNNUB-LXY_o/s320/Robert-Frost-big.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307262190851395714" border="0" /></a>Quite possibly the most underrated American poet, Robert Frost's accessibility and deceptively simple themes tend to be overlooked by fancy pants academics. Mention him at a cocktail party and you're likely to be laughed out of the room for being provincial. Okay, I've never actually been to a cocktail party, but I'm guessing that's how it would go down. Anyway, "After Apple Picking" rocks my face off because of its veiled allusions to death, the conceit of The Fall (Original Sin) intertwined with the imagery of the season of fall, and that random woodchuck business at the end. One of my professors pointed out that the word "woodchuck" is an Ojibway or Cree word meaning "fisher." So, there you have it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Besides, it's cheaper (and more artistically dramatic) to drink at home.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);">Robert Frost</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);">"After Apple Picking"</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);">My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Toward heaven still,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> And there's a barrel that I didn't fill</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Beside it, and there may be two or three</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> But I am done with apple-picking now.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Essence of winter sleep is on the night,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> I got from looking through a pane of glass</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> And held against the world of hoary grass.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> It melted, and I let it fall and break.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> But I was well</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Upon my way to sleep before it fell,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> And I could tell</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> What form my dreaming was about to take.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Magnified apples appear and disappear,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Stem end and blossom end,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> And every fleck of russet showing clear.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> My instep arch not only keeps the ache,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> And I keep hearing from the cellar bin</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> The rumbling sound</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Of load on load of apples coming in.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> For I have had too much</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Of apple-picking: I am overtired</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Of the great harvest I myself desired.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> For all</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> That struck the earth,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Went surely to the cider-apple heap</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> As of no worth.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> One can see what will trouble</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Were he not gone,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> The woodchuck could say whether it's like his</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"> Or just some human sleep.</span><br /><br /> <hr style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);" size="4">ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-26735829798713503422008-10-16T21:13:00.004-05:002008-10-16T21:25:52.413-05:00Three names are better than one<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSTwdXePonw83lxsX3FShIpg1XCD7q0Lgu27J4JrYeQBRnMMADqyd5-HJUNk3dkrQ4Z90npSS3o_xwsQOzIRglET_VkHr1I0FC9eyRH8W52nlvr8CJHHRoKjfm392z3EBj0mNaV7OX3oTb/s1600-h/williams.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSTwdXePonw83lxsX3FShIpg1XCD7q0Lgu27J4JrYeQBRnMMADqyd5-HJUNk3dkrQ4Z90npSS3o_xwsQOzIRglET_VkHr1I0FC9eyRH8W52nlvr8CJHHRoKjfm392z3EBj0mNaV7OX3oTb/s320/williams.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257943117368131202" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><pre style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">It's not enough that he was a physician. Or that he was cool enough to spend most of his life championing<br />the cause of American poetry as a contemporary of fancy-pants writers like T.S. Eliot. William Carlos<br />Williams also happened to write some of the most inspiring, imaginative poetry...in his spare time. That's<br />right: in between seeing patients, he would write. He would go home and write at the end of the day.<br />And if that's not enough, after suffering several debilitating strokes which affected the hand he used to write with,<br />he taught himself to write with his other hand. The most impressive thing I've done all week is eat a bunch of<br />bananas before they went bad...looks like I've got some catching up to do!<br /><br />Do yourself a favor and pick up<span style="font-style: italic;"> Imaginations</span>. It is beautiful, fun to read, and will make you fall in love with poetry.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Tract</span><br /><br />William Carlos Williams<br /><br />I will teach you my townspeople<br />how to perform a funeral<br />for you have it over a troop<br />of artists—<br />unless one should scour the world—<br />you have the ground sense necessary.<br /><br />See! the hearse leads.<br />I begin with a design for a hearse.<br />For Christ's sake not black—<br />nor white either — and not polished!<br />Let it be whethered—like a farm wagon—<br />with gilt wheels (this could be<br />applied fresh at small expense)<br />or no wheels at all:<br />a rough dray to drag over the ground.<br /><br />Knock the glass out!<br />My God—glass, my townspeople!<br />For what purpose? Is it for the dead<br />to look out or for us to see<br />the flowers or the lack of them—<br />or what?<br />To keep the rain and snow from him?<br />He will have a heavier rain soon:<br />pebbles and dirt and what not.<br />Let there be no glass—<br />and no upholstery, phew!<br />and no little brass rollers<br />and small easy wheels on the bottom—<br />my townspeople, what are you thinking of?<br />A rough plain hearse then<br />with gilt wheels and no top at all.<br />On this the coffin lies<br />by its own weight.<br /><br />No wreathes please—<br />especially no hot house flowers.<br />Some common memento is better,<br />something he prized and is known by:<br />his old clothes—a few books perhaps—<br />God knows what! You realize<br />how we are about these things<br />my townspeople—<br />something will be found—anything<br />even flowers if he had come to that.<br />So much for the hearse.<br /><br />For heaven's sake though see to the driver!<br />Take off the silk hat! In fact<br />that's no place at all for him—<br />up there unceremoniously<br />dragging our friend out to his own dignity!<br />Bring him down—bring him down!<br />Low and inconspicuous! I'd not have him ride<br />on the wagon at all—damn him!—<br />the undertaker's understrapper!<br />Let him hold the reins<br />and walk at the side<br />and inconspicuously too!<br /><br />Then briefly as to yourselves:<br />Walk behind—as they do in France,<br />seventh class, or if you ride<br />Hell take curtains! Go with some show<br />of inconvenience; sit openly—<br />to the weather as to grief.<br />Or do you think you can shut grief in?<br />What—from us? We who have perhaps<br />nothing to lose? Share with us<br />share with us—it will be money<br />in your pockets.<br />Go now<br />I think you are ready.<br /></pre>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-46212257012269568932008-08-31T21:26:00.006-05:002008-09-01T18:30:17.190-05:00Yeats in your Face<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdSjXArrYOIxLqOxB6OSb35vq6ZlRkhHsgnCQcIzWKxaxnNRt9pmS8fRgOHDcNvuMMb6ScUMRba0A4wvukOQG1LBB1SNZ4_Eh2VTm9ykhMpFCXotC3Grr5jKZg5MrxvuW98q6CcOyu-OYR/s1600-h/yeats.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdSjXArrYOIxLqOxB6OSb35vq6ZlRkhHsgnCQcIzWKxaxnNRt9pmS8fRgOHDcNvuMMb6ScUMRba0A4wvukOQG1LBB1SNZ4_Eh2VTm9ykhMpFCXotC3Grr5jKZg5MrxvuW98q6CcOyu-OYR/s320/yeats.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240875753534385778" border="0" /></a>Liking Yeats is comparable to liking oxygen. It's just sort of taken for granted that if you're into poetry, you like Yeats. He's one of the greats, and I'm not just saying that because it rhymes...or because of his overtly sexy ascot bow-tie in the photo over there. Yeats melts my face off because in this poem, he laments the desire to love in the way of the old poets while admitting that, frankly, love is hard work. So is writing poetry, for that matter. And being a foxy lady. Of course, he says it much more beautifully than I do, so without further ado, I give you the best poem I've read all week...<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnlnlxTRmaZmra599KoSn_H3twBv92RrzfrSFBBylBbeqfxxEpV6yh-2cYC1Dt5P-b6ZT3iEv0NWJ_vU-i8JfP0rlz5NgRfPbiOGB-m90EBKaLKrlg4NgLox7KtKvi5hD9T2adU16j60Ql/s1600-h/yeats.jpg"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span></a><br /></div><h3> William Butler Yeats<br /></h3><h2> Adam's Curse </h2> We sat together at one summer's end,<br />That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,<br />And you and I, and talked of poetry.<br />I said, "A line will take us hours maybe;<br />Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,<br />Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.<br />Better go down upon your marrow-bones<br />And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones<br />Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;<br />For to articulate sweet sounds together<br />Is to work harder than all these, and yet<br />Be thought an idler by the noisy set<br />Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen<br />The martyrs call the world."<br /> And thereupon<br />That beautiful mild woman for whose sake<br />There's many a one shall find out all heartache<br />On finding that her voice is sweet and low<br />Replied, "To be born woman is to know --<br />Although they do not talk of it at school --<br />That we must labour to be beautiful."<br />I said, "It's certain there is no fine thing<br />Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.<br />There have been lovers who thought love should be<br />So much compounded of high courtesy<br />That they would sigh and quote with learned looks<br />precedents out of beautiful old books;<br />Yet now it seems an idle trade enough."<br /><br />We sat grown quiet at the name of love;<br />We saw the last embers of daylight die,<br />And in the trembling blue-green of the sky<br />A moon, worn as if it had been a shell<br />Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell<br />About the stars and broke in days and years.<br />I had a thought for no one's but your ears:<br />That you were beautiful, and that I strove<br />To love you in the old high way of love;<br />That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown<br />As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-20436547870894542362008-08-06T22:37:00.004-05:002008-08-10T21:26:53.039-05:00road construction<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNH3Vpbnj3vw6UIz1dKJHuqSLqaaxzoYq4Hi7ykes8pjnarA81c_c8DbFSsO06x2wQVMaUMcbtY361QR9yo5Smv4G6-CEQpJXwJPEVFxkSpYTx62Intg3ph36G6xn0vFYgOoGMBQ7koGkn/s1600-h/portia-nelson.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNH3Vpbnj3vw6UIz1dKJHuqSLqaaxzoYq4Hi7ykes8pjnarA81c_c8DbFSsO06x2wQVMaUMcbtY361QR9yo5Smv4G6-CEQpJXwJPEVFxkSpYTx62Intg3ph36G6xn0vFYgOoGMBQ7koGkn/s320/portia-nelson.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233076844761662162" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;"><span style="font-size:85%;">we've all been there: that cycle of repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting the results to be different. then, one day it clicks and you realize that the only constant in the equation is you. besides, you've gotta love something written by a woman who looks like she could have done a cameo on the golden girls - those glasses and the lady-fro just scream "wisdom," don'tcha think? here's to moving on and following your bliss with reckless abandon. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><br /><br /><br />There's a Hole in my Sidewalk<br /><br />Portia Nelson</span><br />from An Autobiography in Five Short Chapters<br /><br />I:<br />I walk down the street.<br />There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.<br />I fall in.<br />I am lost…<br />I am helpless.<br />It is not my fault.<br />It takes forever to find my way out.<br /><br />II:<br />I walk down the same street.<br />There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.<br />I pretend I don’t see it.<br />I fall in.<br />I can’t believe I am in the same place.<br />But it isn’t my fault.<br />It still takes a long time to get out.<br /><br />III:<br />I walk down the same street.<br />There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.<br />I see it there.<br />I still fall in…It’s a habit.<br />My eyes are open.<br />I know where I am.<br />It is my fault.<br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;"> I get out immediately.<br /><br />IV:<br />I walk down the same street.<br />There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.<br />I walk around it.<br />I walk down another street.</span>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-10237810163192954212008-07-20T23:19:00.006-05:002008-08-10T21:32:43.738-05:00the truth about love<a style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU6BK0bwkOksB8gxVqOmqxfbvNbsVqpljiy78ljXE8diYzB9kNyAvDuhHfMTzBPO4sz9JhSyFETI7KrauzUZzGlPaSLz7F_5Y5Vt1PocrzwW5r1UYgg2rJw0QPEOr2q8r2iFvp0LWgin7h/s1600-h/john+donne.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU6BK0bwkOksB8gxVqOmqxfbvNbsVqpljiy78ljXE8diYzB9kNyAvDuhHfMTzBPO4sz9JhSyFETI7KrauzUZzGlPaSLz7F_5Y5Vt1PocrzwW5r1UYgg2rJw0QPEOr2q8r2iFvp0LWgin7h/s320/john+donne.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225318191767804498" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" >john donne is pretty much the most rockin' of the metaphysical poets, and his awesomeness is completely astounding. case in point: "the broken heart," a poem in which he shows modern readers that heartache is both timeless and excruciating. the theme of glass woven beautifully through the last two stanzas is the kind of thing that gets me so excited about writing that i emitted a deep sigh of bittersweet joy the first time i read this. here's hoping he has the same effect on you.</span><br /><br /><table style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:arial;"><tbody><tr><td> <center><span style="font-size:100%;">THE BROKEN HEART<br />by John Donne</span></center> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br />He is stark mad, whoever says,<br />That he hath been in love an hour,<br />Yet not that love so soon decays,<br />But that it can ten in less space devour ;<br />Who will believe me, if I swear<br />That I have had the plague a year?<br />Who would not laugh at me, if I should say<br />I saw a flash of powder burn a day?<br /><br />Ah, what a trifle is a heart,<br />If once into love's hands it come !<br />All other griefs allow a part<br />To other griefs, and ask themselves but some ;<br />They come to us, but us love draws ;<br />He swallows us and never chaws ;<br />By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die ;<br />He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.<br /><br />If 'twere not so, what did become<br />Of my heart when I first saw thee?<br />I brought a heart into the room,<br />But from the room I carried none with me.<br />If it had gone to thee, I know<br />Mine would have taught thine heart to show<br />More pity unto me ; but Love, alas !<br />At one first blow did shiver it as glass.<br /><br />Yet nothing can to nothing fall,<br />Nor any place be empty quite ;<br />Therefore I think my breast hath all<br />Those pieces still, though they be not unite ;<br />And now, as broken glasses show<br />A hundred lesser faces, so<br />My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,<br />But after one such love, can love no more.<br /></span> </td></tr></tbody></table>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-9713952975923168422008-07-17T22:38:00.005-05:002008-08-10T22:01:37.890-05:00Rilke Rawks<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglH9dXJhmclFo8SnV3AvHZ5SYCrx0z14XPsjIJZupgWDlARX4YIFd3PpYBkIL1sHDjCWWJSdkaKdAAJ_7nPXhAlP5-XwLN6RdXsT1qIVcdVTUy0QSOshmw5VMyK9TcnwhpcV4KTqXNk1Rx/s1600-h/rilke.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglH9dXJhmclFo8SnV3AvHZ5SYCrx0z14XPsjIJZupgWDlARX4YIFd3PpYBkIL1sHDjCWWJSdkaKdAAJ_7nPXhAlP5-XwLN6RdXsT1qIVcdVTUy0QSOshmw5VMyK9TcnwhpcV4KTqXNk1Rx/s320/rilke.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233089555358843074" border="0" /></a><br /><pre style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />here's the thing about rilke: he wrote so much good stuff that<br />it's impossible to play favorites or to choose just one poem that speaks for his entire body of work.<br />nevertheless, "the swan" is pretty much the perfect poem to me. it involves what i consider to be the greatest of all literary<br />symbols: the swan (see also the mythology behind leda and the swan and tennyson's "tithonus"); evolution; and finally, imagery of water<br />which adds a smooth feeling of descent after the awkward pace of the first two short stanzas. this poem is a veritable<br />trifecta of literary loveliness. translated into iambic pentameter - don't ask me how translators do that - rilke proves that<br />the standard metre of the english language is a mere trifle to his brilliant pate. it's poetry like this that makes me feel<br />like life is worth living on even the darkest of days when people like nora roberts seem to pervade bestseller lists.<br /><br /><br /><br />Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />"The Swan"<br /><br />This laboring through what is still undone,<br />as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,<br />is like the akward walking of the swan.<br /><br />And dying-to let go, no longer feel<br />the solid ground we stand on every day-<br />is like anxious letting himself fall<br /><br />into waters, which receive him gently<br />and which, as though with reverence and joy,<br />draw back past him in streams on either side;<br />while, infinitely silent and aware,<br />in his full majesty and ever more<br />indifferent, he condescends to glide.<br /><br /><br />Translated by <cite>Stephen Mitchell</cite></span></span></pre>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-42173504916404387542008-07-04T16:16:00.012-05:002008-07-10T07:45:58.148-05:00the flowers of evil<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOn7t7Gj_36o6xHrsRG65PST2Nsqvvp62WNCnLlkubSV0Q5Ht69zdlgZabtjBQ_l0zbtZL9LbBZ6T_p4Tq6aAjp8n8pxEY98bxqLhY5RACntO3eSJderU56w95bV5rjGRClp4KZJWcLkJ9/s1600-h/Portrait-of-Charles-Baudelaire-1821-67-1844-Giclee-Print-C12605797.jpeg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5219272177262593474" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOn7t7Gj_36o6xHrsRG65PST2Nsqvvp62WNCnLlkubSV0Q5Ht69zdlgZabtjBQ_l0zbtZL9LbBZ6T_p4Tq6aAjp8n8pxEY98bxqLhY5RACntO3eSJderU56w95bV5rjGRClp4KZJWcLkJ9/s320/Portrait-of-Charles-Baudelaire-1821-67-1844-Giclee-Print-C12605797.jpeg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">american hatred of the french is ubiquitous and absurd and dull. i think it springs from a deep jealously of rockin' poets and artists such as baudelaire - or, perhaps, from an ethnocentric abhorrence of escargot. in either case, i hope these poems will redeem some aspect of french culture to those of you who may be on the fence and just need a tiny shove toward embracing all that is lovely, dark and meaningful.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"> <blockquote style="font-family:arial;"><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-STYLE: italic">the flowers of evil</span> is a wonderful collection of baudelaire's poetry that i recommend to anyone who claims to dislike poetry - or the french, for that matter. if you still hate poetry after reading baudelaire, i am sorry to say that there is simply no hope for you, my friend. it may be the my second most favorite collection (second only to tennyson, that is), and that alone should make you leap from your chair in a frenzy and rush to find your own copy. i like to think i have that kind of superpower over your mind. please to enjoy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>MUSIC</strong><br />Music doth uplift me like a sea<br />Towards my planet pale,<br />Then through dark fogs or heaven's infinity<br />I lift my wandering sail.<br /><br />With breast advanced, drinking the winds that flee,<br />And through the cordage wail,<br />I mount the hurrying waves night hides from me<br />Beneath her sombre veil.<br /><br />I feel the tremblings of all passions known<br />To ships before the breeze;<br />Cradled by gentle winds, or tempest-blown<br /><br />I pass the abysmal seas<br />That are, when calm, the mirror level and fair<br />Of my despair!</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span> </p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>THE TEMPTATION</strong><br />The Demon, in my chamber high,<br />This morning came to visit me,<br />And, thinking he would find some fault,<br />He whispered: "I would know of thee<br /><br />Among the many lovely things<br />That make the magic of her face,<br />Among the beauties, black and rose,<br />That make her body's charm and grace,<br /><br />Which is most fair?" Thou didst reply<br />To the Abhorred, O soul of mine:<br />"No single beauty is the best<br />When she is all one flower divine.<br /><br />When all things charm me I ignore<br />Which one alone brings most delight;<br />She shines before me like the dawn,<br />And she consoles me like the night.<br /><br />The harmony is far too great,<br />That governs all her body fair,<br />For impotence to analyse<br />And say which note is sweetest there.<br /><br />O mystic metamorphosis!<br />My senses into one sense flow--<br />Her voice makes perfume when she speaks,<br />Her breath is music faint and low!"</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span> </p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>BEAUTY</strong><br />I am as lovely as a dream in stone,<br />And this my heart where each finds death in turn,<br />Inspires the poet with a love as lone<br />As clay eternal and as taciturn.<br /><br />Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,<br />My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;<br />I hate all movements that disturb my pose,<br />I smile not ever, neither do I weep.<br /><br />Before my monumental attitudes,<br />That breathe a soul into the plastic arts,<br />My poets pray in austere studious moods,<br /><br />For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,<br />Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,<br />The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p></p></span>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-54453966349080852422008-06-30T07:59:00.006-05:002008-08-10T21:32:11.442-05:00the best short story you will ever read<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSQ5foV1iVNzSeBmeS0hmKKtqZie2najHB41ZoH_oHK-BnuIwt2p5T1MMOHcV3d-j8oZADNHR2J9dO7_3yDKHf83g0KuoSwRIxo6qw_NicRSKDb9BbyzILB370cxUG3xLLfHYkF7f0qqIa/s1600-h/anton-chekhov.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217666120571532274" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSQ5foV1iVNzSeBmeS0hmKKtqZie2najHB41ZoH_oHK-BnuIwt2p5T1MMOHcV3d-j8oZADNHR2J9dO7_3yDKHf83g0KuoSwRIxo6qw_NicRSKDb9BbyzILB370cxUG3xLLfHYkF7f0qqIa/s320/anton-chekhov.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >for those of you who suffered through <em>the cherry orchard</em>, my sincerest apologies. i only read it because i had to for one of my classes, and afterward i wondered why anyone would read chekhov unless forced to at gunpoint by the russian mafia... then my brother adam sent me the text to "the bet," which quickly became my all-time favorite short story.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" ></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >go figure. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >for some reason, this story always gives me hope despite the fact that it is incredibly unsettling... or maybe it's precisely because it's so unsettling that i love it so much. this is one of those stories that is continually churning around in the back of my mind at any given time: it just sort of lives in there, appearing and disappearing at random intervals, helping me to keep things in perspective when the outside world makes me crazy. it covers all the biggies - life, death, art, literature, music, tobacco - and whenever i finish reading it, the same butterflies - in - my tummy, salt - water - in - my-brain feeling washes over me and everything just makes sense. it's as if a jigsaw puzzle falls into place in front of my eyes and for a few blissful moments, i achieve literary nirava. maybe you won't experience the same altruistic afterglow as me, but i have a feeling that this will be the best 15 minutes you spend reading something today.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><strong>Anton Chekhov</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><strong>The Bet</strong></span><br /><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="1"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >IT</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > WAS a dark autumn night. The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had given a party one autumn evening. There had been many clever men there, and there had been interesting conversations. Among other things they had talked of capital punishment. The majority of the guests, among whom were many journalists and intellectual men, disapproved of the death penalty. They considered that form of punishment out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for Christian States. In the opinion of some of them the death penalty ought to be replaced everywhere by imprisonment for life.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="2"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"I</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > don't agree with you," said their host the banker. "I have not tried either the death penalty or imprisonment for life, but if one may judge _a priori_, the death penalty is more moral and more humane than imprisonment for life. Capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. Which executioner is the more humane, he who kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out of you in the course of many years?"</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="3"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"Both</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > are equally immoral," observed one of the guests, "for they both have the same object -- to take away life. The State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to."</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="4"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >Among</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > the guests was a young lawyer, a young man of five-and-twenty. When he was asked his opinion, he said:</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="5"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"The</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral, but if I had to choose between the death penalty and imprisonment for life, I would certainly choose the second. To live anyhow is better than not at all."</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="6"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >A</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > lively discussion arose. The banker, who was younger and more nervous in those days, was suddenly carried away by excitement; he struck the table with his fist and shouted at the young man:</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="7"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"It's</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > not true! I'll bet you two millions you wouldn't stay in solitary confinement for five years."<br /></span><a class="anchor" name="8"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"If</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > you mean that in earnest," said the young man, "I'll take the bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen years."</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="9"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"Fifteen?</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > Done!" cried the banker. "Gentlemen, I stake two millions!"</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="10"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"Agreed!</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > You stake your millions and I stake my freedom!" said the young man.<br /></span><a class="anchor" name="11"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >And</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > this wild, senseless bet was carried out! The banker, spoilt and frivolous, with millions beyond his reckoning, was delighted at the bet. At supper he made fun of the young man, and said:</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="12"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"Think</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > better of it, young man, while there is still time. To me two millions are a trifle, but you are losing three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you won't stay longer. Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great deal harder to bear than compulsory. The thought that you have the right to step out in liberty at any moment will poison your whole existence in prison. I am sorry for you."</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="13"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >And</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > now the banker, walking to and fro, remembered all this, and asked himself: "What was the object of that bet? What is the good of that man's losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two millions? Can it prove that the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all nonsensical and meaningless. On my part it was the caprice of a pampered man, and on his part simple greed for money. . . ."</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="14"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >Then</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > he remembered what followed that evening. It was decided that the young man should spend the years of his captivity under the strictest supervision in one of the lodges in the banker's garden. It was agreed that for fifteen years he should not be free to cross the threshold of the lodge, to see human beings, to hear the human voice, or to receive letters and newspapers. He was allowed to have a musical instrument and books, and was allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to smoke. By the terms of the agreement, the only relations he could have with the outer world were by a little window made purposely for that object. He might have anything he wanted -- books, music, wine, and so on -- in any quantity he desired by writing an order, but could only receive them through the window. The agreement provided for every detail and every trifle that would make his imprisonment strictly solitary, and bound the young man to stay there _exactly_ fifteen years, beginning from twelve o'clock of November 14, 1870, and ending at twelve o'clock of November 14, 1885. The slightest attempt on his part to break the conditions, if only two minutes before the end, released the banker from the obligation to pay him two millions.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="15"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >For</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > the first year of his confinement, as far as one could judge from his brief notes, the prisoner suffered severely from loneliness and depression. The sounds of the piano could be heard continually day and night from his lodge. He refused wine and tobacco. Wine, he wrote, excites the desires, and desires are the worst foes of the prisoner; and besides, nothing could be more dreary than drinking good wine and seeing no one. And tobacco spoilt the air of his room. In the first year the books he sent for were principally of a light character; novels with a complicated love plot, sensational and fantastic stories, and so on.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="16"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >In</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > the second year the piano was silent in the lodge, and the prisoner asked only for the classics. In the fifth year music was audible again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him through the window said that all that year he spent doing nothing but eating and drinking and lying on his bed, frequently yawning and angrily talking to himself. He did not read books. Sometimes at night he would sit down to write; he would spend hours writing, and in the morning tear up all that he had written. More than once he could be heard crying.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="17"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >In</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > the second half of the sixth year the prisoner began zealously studying languages, philosophy, and history. He threw himself eagerly into these studies -- so much so that the banker had enough to do to get him the books he ordered. In the course of four years some six hundred volumes were procured at his request. It was during this period that the banker received the following letter from his prisoner:</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="18"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"My</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > dear Jailer, I write you these lines in six languages. Show them to people who know the languages. Let them read them. If they find not one mistake I implore you to fire a shot in the garden. That shot will show me that my efforts have not been thrown away. The geniuses of all ages and of all lands speak different languages, but the same flame burns in them all. Oh, if you only knew what unearthly happiness my soul feels now from being able to understand them!" The prisoner's desire was fulfilled. The banker ordered two shots to be fired in the garden.<br /></span><a class="anchor" name="19"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >Then</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovably at the table and read nothing but the Gospel. It seemed strange to the banker that a man who in four years had mastered six hundred learned volumes should waste nearly a year over one thin book easy of comprehension. Theology and histories of religion followed the Gospels.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="20"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >In</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an immense quantity of books quite indiscriminately. At one time he was busy with the natural sciences, then he would ask for Byron or Shakespeare. There were notes in which he demanded at the same time books on chemistry, and a manual of medicine, and a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology. His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching first at one spar and then at another.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="21"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >II</span></a><br /><a class="anchor" name="22"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >The</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > old banker remembered all this, and thought:</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="23"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"To-morrow</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > at twelve o'clock he will regain his freedom. By our agreement I ought to pay him two millions. If I do pay him, it is all over with me: I shall be utterly ruined."</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="24"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >Fifteen</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > years before, his millions had been beyond his reckoning; now he was afraid to ask himself which were greater, his debts or his assets. Desperate gambling on the Stock Exchange, wild speculation and the excitability whic h he could not get over even in advancing years, had by degrees led to the decline of his fortune and the proud, fearless, self-confident millionaire had become a banker of middling rank, trembling at every rise and fall in his investments. "Cursed bet!" muttered the old man, clutching his head in despair "Why didn't the man die? He is only forty now. He will take my last penny from me, he will marry, will enjoy life, will gamble on the Exchange; while I shall look at him with envy like a beggar, and hear from him every day the same sentence: 'I am indebted to you for the happiness of my life, let me help you!' No, it is too much! The one means of being saved from bankruptcy and disgrace is the death of that man!"<br /></span><a class="anchor" name="25"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >It</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > struck three o'clock, the banker listened; everyone was asleep in the house and nothing could be heard outside but the rustling of the chilled trees. Trying to make no noise, he took from a fireproof safe the key of the door which had not been opened for fifteen years, put on his overcoat, and went out of the house.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="26"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >It</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > was dark and cold in the garden. Rain was falling. A damp cutting wind was racing about the garden, howling and giving the trees no rest. The banker strained his eyes, but could see neither the earth nor the white statues, nor the lodge, nor the trees. Going to the spot where the lodge stood, he twice called the watchman. No answer followed. Evidently the watchman had sought shelter from the weather, and was now asleep somewhere either in the kitchen or in the greenhouse.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="27"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"If</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > I had the pluck to carry out my intention," thought the old man, "Suspicion would fall first upon the watchman."</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="28"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >He</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > felt in the darkness for the steps and the door, and went into the entry of the lodge. Then he groped his way into a little passage and lighted a match. There was not a soul there. There was a bedstead with no bedding on it, and in the corner there was a dark cast-iron stove. The seals on the door leading to the prisoner's rooms were intact.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="29"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >When</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > the match went out the old man, trembling with emotion, peeped through the little window. A candle was burning dimly in the prisoner's room. He was sitting at the table. Nothing could be seen but his back, the hair on his head, and his hands. Open books were lying on the table, on the two easy-chairs, and on the carpet near the table.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="30"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >Five</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > minutes passed and the prisoner did not once stir. Fifteen years' imprisonment had taught him to sit still. The banker tapped at the window with his finger, and the prisoner made no movement whatever in response. Then the banker cautiously broke the seals off the door and put the key in the keyhole. The rusty lock gave a grating sound and the door creaked. The banker expected to hear at once footsteps and a cry of astonishment, but three minutes passed and it was as quiet as ever in the room. He made up his mind to go in.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="31"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >At</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > the table a man unlike ordinary people was sitting motionless. He was a skeleton with the skin drawn tight over his bones, with long curls like a woman's and a shaggy beard. His face was yellow with an earthy tint in it, his cheeks were hollow, his back long and narrow, and the hand on which his shaggy head was propped was so thin and delicate that it was dreadful to look at it. His hair was already streaked with silver, and seeing his emaciated, aged-looking face, no one would have believed that he was only forty. He was asleep. . . . In front of his bowed head there lay on the table a sheet of paper on which there was something written in fine handwriting.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="32"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"Poor</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > creature!" thought the banker, "he is asleep and most likely dreaming of the millions. And I have only to take this half-dead man, throw him on the bed, stifle him a little with the pillow, and the most conscientious expert would find no sign of a violent death. But let us first read what he has written here. . . ."</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="33"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >The</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > banker took the page from the table and read as follows:</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="34"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"To-morrow</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > at twelve o'clock I regain my freedom and the right to associate with other men, but before I leave this room and see the sunshine, I think it necessary to say a few words to you. With a clear conscience I tell you, as before God, who beholds me, that I despise freedom and life and health, and all that in your books is called the good things of the world.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="35"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"For</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > fifteen years I have been intently studying earthly life. It is true I have not seen the earth nor men, but in your books I have drunk fragrant wine, I have sung songs, I have hunted stags and wild boars in the forests, have loved women. . . . Beauties as ethereal as clouds, created by the magic of your poets and geniuses, have visited me at night, and have whispered in my ears wonderful tales that have set my brain in a whirl. In your books I have climbed to the peaks of Elburz and Mont Blanc, and from there I have seen the sun rise and have watched it at evening flood the sky, the ocean, and the mountain-tops with gold and crimson. I have watched from there the lightning flashing over my head and cleaving the storm-clouds. I have seen green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, towns. I have heard the singing of the sirens, and the strains of the shepherds' pipes; I have touched the wings of comely devils who flew down to converse with me of God. . . . In your books I have flung myself into the bottomless pit, performed miracles, slain, burned towns, preached new religions, conquered whole kingdoms. . . .</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="36"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"Your</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > books have given me wisdom. All that the unresting thought of man has created in the ages is compressed into a small compass in my brain. I know that I am wiser than all of you.<br /></span><a class="anchor" name="37"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"And</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="38"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"You</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="39"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >"To</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > prove to you in action how I despise all that you live by, I renounce the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise and which now I despise. To deprive myself of the right to the money I shall go out from here five hours before the time fixed, and so break the compact. . . ."</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="40"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >When</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > the banker had read this he laid the page on the table, kissed the strange man on the head, and went out of the lodge, weeping. At no other time, even when he had lost heavily on the Stock Exchange, had he felt so great a contempt for himself. When he got home he lay on his bed, but his tears and emotion kept him for hours from sleeping.</span><br /><br /><a class="anchor" name="41"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" >Next</span></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;" > morning the watchmen ran in with pale faces, and told him they had seen the man who lived in the lodge climb out of the window into the garden, go to the gate, and disappear. The banker went at once with the servants to the lodge and made sure of the flight of his prisoner. To avoid arousing unnecessary talk, he took from the table the writing in which the millions were renounced, and when he got home locked it up in the fireproof safe.</span>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-12703139641841569342008-06-30T07:50:00.004-05:002008-06-30T07:58:07.559-05:00jesus shown everything off balance<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjHxBEt3nbaVDGs6doSsJTaxZB8dc8eW4GHzXCjtuOwYjAJNiTWsV37yJGyqWYY_sPrcsZ9Iqfs9KdAGDB_ur1sT2ZFG7FORIKuwv6OtTYV8DN7_E76TZC8-CYHme83szyazwz7o3E23x/s1600-h/flannery.jpg"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#330033;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217657679494327826" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjHxBEt3nbaVDGs6doSsJTaxZB8dc8eW4GHzXCjtuOwYjAJNiTWsV37yJGyqWYY_sPrcsZ9Iqfs9KdAGDB_ur1sT2ZFG7FORIKuwv6OtTYV8DN7_E76TZC8-CYHme83szyazwz7o3E23x/s320/flannery.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-size:130%;color:#330033;">A Good Man Is Hard To Find </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;color:#330033;">by Flannery O'Connor</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#330033;">The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennes- see and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. "Now look here, Bailey," she said, "see here, read this," and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did."<br />Bailey didn't look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children's mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbit's ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. "The children have been to Florida before," the old lady said. "You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee."<br />The children's mother didn't seem to hear her but the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky child with glasses, said, "If you don't want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?" He and the little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor.<br />"She wouldn't stay at home to be queen for a day," June Star said without raising her yellow head.<br />"Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?" the grandmother asked.<br />"I'd smack his face," John Wesley said.<br />"She wouldn't stay at home for a million bucks," June Star said. "Afraid she'd miss something. She has to go everywhere we go."<br />"All right, Miss," the grandmother said. "Just re- member that the next time you want me to curl your hair."<br />June Star said her hair was naturally curly.<br />The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She didn't intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of her gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself. Her son, Bailey, didn't like to arrive at a motel with a cat.<br />She sat in the middle of the back seat with John Wesley and June Star on either side of her. Bailey and the children's mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother wrote this down because she thought it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when they got back. It took them twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of the city.<br />The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.<br />She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen hid themselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery: Stone Mountain; the blue granite that in some places came up to both sides of the highway; the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple; and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled. The children were reading comic magazines and their mother and gone back to sleep.<br />"Let's go through Georgia fast so we won't have to look at it much," John Wesley said.<br />"If I were a little boy," said the grandmother, "I wouldn't talk about my native state that way. Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the hills."<br />"Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground," John Wesley said, "and Georgia is a lousy state too."<br />"You said it," June Star said.<br />"In my time," said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!" she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?" she asked and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the back window. He waved<br />"He didn't have any britches on," June Star said.<br />"He probably didn't have any," the grandmother explained. "Little riggers in the country don't have things like we do. If I could paint, I'd paint that picture," she said.<br />The children exchanged comic books.<br />The grandmother offered to hold the baby and the children's mother passed him over the front seat to her. She set him on her knee and bounced him and told him about the things they were passing. She rolled her eyes and screwed up her mouth and stuck her leathery thin face into his smooth bland one. Occasionally he gave her a faraway smile. They passed a large cotton field with five or fix graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. "Look at the graveyard!" the grandmother said, pointing it out. "That was the old family burying ground. That belonged to the plantation."<br />"Where's the plantation?" John Wesley asked.<br />"Gone With the Wind" said the grandmother. "Ha. Ha."<br />When the children finished all the comic books they had brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The grandmother ate a peanut butter sandwich and an olive and would not let the children throw the box and the paper napkins out the window. When there was nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested. John Wesley took one the shape of a cow and June Star guessed a cow and John Wesley said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he didn't play fair, and they began to slap each other over the grandmother.<br />The grandmother said she would tell them a story if they would keep quiet. When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic. She said once when she was a maiden lady she had been courted by a Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden from Jasper, Georgia. She said he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her a watermelon every Saturday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E. A. T. Well, one Saturday, she said, Mr. Teagarden brought the watermelon and there was nobody at home and he left it on the front porch and returned in his buggy to Jasper, but she never got the watermelon, she said, because a nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials, E. A. T. ! This story tickled John Wesley's funny bone and he giggled and giggled but June Star didn't think it was any good. She said she wouldn't marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday. The grandmother said she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentle man and had bought Coca-Cola stock when it first came out and that he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man.<br />They stopped at The Tower for barbecued sand- wiches. The Tower was a part stucco and part wood filling station and dance hall set in a clearing outside of Timothy. A fat man named Red Sammy Butts ran it and there were signs stuck here and there on the building and for miles up and down the highway saying, TRY RED SAMMY'S FAMOUS BARBECUE. NONE LIKE FAMOUS RED SAMMY'S! RED SAM! THE FAT BOY WITH THE HAPPY LAUGH. A VETERAN! RED SAMMY'S YOUR MAN!<br />Red Sammy was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower with his head under a truck while a gray monkey about a foot high, chained to a small chinaberry tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got on the highest limb as soon as he saw the children jump out of the car and run toward him.<br />Inside, The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at one end and tables at the other and dancing space in the middle. They all sat down at a board table next to the nickelodeon and Red Sam's wife, a tall burnt-brown woman with hair and eyes lighter than her skin, came and took their order. The children's mother put a dime in the machine and played "The Tennessee Waltz," and the grandmother said that tune always made her want to dance. She asked Bailey if he would like to dance but he only glared at her. He didn't have a naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous. The grandmother's brown eyes were very bright. She swayed her head from side to side and pretended she was dancing in her chair. June Star said play something she could tap to so the children's mother put in another dime and played a fast number and June Star stepped out onto the dance floor and did her tap routine.<br />"Ain't she cute?" Red Sam's wife said, leaning over the counter. "Would you like to come be my little girl?"<br />"No I certainly wouldn't," June Star said. "I wouldn't live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!" and she ran back to the table.<br />"Ain't she cute?" the woman repeated, stretching her mouth politely.<br />"Arn't you ashamed?" hissed the grandmother.<br />Red Sam came in and told his wife to quit lounging on the counter and hurry up with these people's order. His khaki trousers reached just to his hip bones and his stomach hung over them like a sack of meal swaying under his shirt. He came over and sat down at a table nearby and let out a combination sigh and yodel. "You can't win," he said. "You can't win," and he wiped his sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief. "These days you don't know who to trust," he said. "Ain't that the truth?"<br />"People are certainly not nice like they used to be," said the grandmother.<br />"Two fellers come in here last week," Red Sammy said, "driving a Chrysler. It was a old beat-up car but it was a good one and these boys looked all right to me. Said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?"<br />"Because you're a good man!" the grandmother said at once.<br />"Yes'm, I suppose so," Red Sam said as if he were struck with this answer.<br />His wife brought the orders, carrying the five plates all at once without a tray, two in each hand and one balanced on her arm. "It isn't a soul in this green world of God's that you can trust," she said. "And I don't count nobody out of that, not nobody," she repeated, looking at Red Sammy.<br />"Did you read about that criminal, The Misfit, that's escaped?" asked the grandmother.<br />"I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he didn't attack this place right here," said the woman. "If he hears about it being here, I wouldn't be none surprised to see him. If he hears it's two cent in the cash register, I wouldn't be a tall surprised if he . . ."<br />"That'll do," Red Sam said. "Go bring these people their Co'-Colas," and the woman went off to get the rest of the order.<br />"A good man is hard to find," Red Sammy said. "Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more."<br />He and the grandmother discussed better times. The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it, she was exactly right. The children ran outside into the white sunlight and looked at the monkey in the lacy chinaberry tree. He was busy catching fleas on himself and biting each one carefully between his teeth as if it were a delicacy.<br />They drove off again into the hot afternoon. The grandmother took cat naps and woke up every few minutes with her own snoring. Outside of Toombsboro she woke up and recalled an old plantation that she had visited in this neighborhood once when she was a young lady. She said the house had six white columns across the front and that there was an avenue of oaks leading up to it and two little wooden trellis arbors on either side in front where you sat down with your suitor after a stroll in the garden. She recalled exactly which road to turn off to get to it. She knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but the more she talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again and find out if the little twin arbors were still standing. "There was a secret:-panel in this house," she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, "and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found . . ."<br />"Hey!" John Wesley said. "Let's go see it! We'll find it! We'll poke all the woodwork and find it! Who lives there? Where do you turn off at? Hey Pop, can't we turn off there?"<br />"We never have seen a house with a secret panel!" June Star shrieked. "Let's go to the house with the secret panel! Hey Pop, can't we go see the house with the secret panel!"<br />"It's not far from here, I know," the grandmother said. "It wouldn't take over twenty minutes."<br />Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid as a horseshoe. "No," he said.<br />The children began to yell and scream that they wanted to see the house with the secret panel. John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat and June Star hung over her mother's shoulder and whined desperately into her ear that they never had any fun even on their vacation, that they could never do what THEY wanted to do. The baby began to scream and John Wesley kicked the back of the seat so hard that his father could feel the blows in his kidney.<br />"All right!" he shouted and drew the car to a stop at the side of the road. "Will you all shut up? Will you all just shut up for one second? If you don't shut up, we won't go anywhere."<br />"It would be very educational for them," the grandmother murmured.<br />"All right," Bailey said, "but get this: this is the only time we're going to stop for anything like this. This is the one and only time."<br />"The dirt road that you have to turn down is about a mile back," the grandmother directed. "I marked it when we passed."<br />"A dirt road," Bailey groaned.<br />After they had turned around and were headed toward the dirt road, the grandmother recalled other points about the house, the beautiful glass over the front doorway and the candle-lamp in the hall. John Wesley said that the secret panel was probably in the fireplace.<br />"You can't go inside this house," Bailey said. "You don't know who lives there."<br />"While you all talk to the people in front, I'll run around behind and get in a window," John Wesley suggested.<br />"We'll all stay in the car," his mother said.<br />They turned onto the dirt road and the car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust. The grandmother recalled the times when there were no paved roads and thirty miles was a day's journey. The dirt road was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp curves on dangerous embankments. All at once they would be on a hill, looking down over the blue tops of trees for miles around, then the next minute, they would be in a red depression with the dust-coated trees looking down on them.<br />"This place had better turn up in a minute," Bailey said, "or I'm going to turn around."<br />The road looked as if no one had traveled on it in months.<br />"It's not much farther," the grandmother said and just as she said it, a horrible thought came to her. The thought was so embarrassing that she turned red in the face and her eyes dilated and her feet jumped up, upsetting her valise in the corner. The instant the valise moved, the newspaper top she had over the basket under it rose with a snarl and Pitty Sing, the cat, sprang onto Bailey's shoulder.<br />The children were thrown to the floor and their mother, clutching the baby, was thrown out the door onto the ground; the old lady was thrown into the front seat. The car turned over once and landed right-side-up in a gulch off the side of the road. Bailey remained in the driver's seat with the cat gray-striped with a broad white face and an orange nose clinging to his neck like a caterpillar.<br />As soon as the children saw they could move their arms and legs, they scrambled out of the car, shouting, "We've had an ACCIDENT!" The grandmother was curled up under the dashboard, hoping she was injured so that Bailey's wrath would not come down on her all at once. The horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee.<br />Bailey removed the cat from his neck with both hands and flung it out the window against the side of a pine tree. Then he got out of the car and started looking for the children's mother. She was sitting against the side of the red gutted ditch, holding the screaming baby, but she only had a cut down her face and a broken shoulder. "We've had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed in a frenzy of delight.<br />"But nobody's killed," June Star said with disappointment as the grandmother limped out of the car, her hat still pinned to her head but the broken front brim standing up at a jaunty angle and the violet spray hanging off the side. They all sat down in the ditch, except the children, to recover from the shock. They were all shaking.<br />"Maybe a car will come along," said the children's mother hoarsely.<br />"I believe I have injured an organ," said the grandmother, pressing her side, but no one answered her. Bailey's teeth were clattering. He had on a yellow sport shirt with bright blue parrots designed in it and his face was as yellow as the shirt. The grandmother decided that she would not mention that the house was in Tennessee.<br />The road was about ten feet above and they could see only the tops of the trees on the other side of it. Behind the ditch they were sitting in there were more woods, tall and dark and deep. In a few minutes they saw a car some distance away on top of a hill, coming slowly as if the occupants were watching them. The grandmother stood up and waved both arms dramatically to attract their attention. The car continued to come on slowly, disappeared around a bend and appeared again, moving even slower, on top of the hill they had gone over. It was a big black battered hearselike automobile. There were three men in it.<br />It came to a stop just over them and for some minutes, the driver looked down with a steady expressionless gaze to where they were sitting, and didn't speak. Then he turned his head and muttered something to the other two and they got out. One was a fat boy in black trousers and a red sweat shirt with a silver stallion embossed on the front of it. He moved around on the right side of them and stood staring, his mouth partly open in a kind of loose grin. The other had on khaki pants and a blue striped coat and a gray hat pulled down very low, hiding most of his face. He came around slowly on the left side. Neither spoke.<br />The driver got out of the car and stood by the side of it, looking down at them. He was an older man than the other two. His hair was just beginning to gray and he wore silver-rimmed spectacles that gave him a scholarly look. He had a long creased face and didn't have on any shirt or undershirt. He had on blue jeans that were too tight for him and was holding a black hat and a gun. The two boys also had guns.<br />"We've had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed.<br />The grandmother had the peculiar feeling that the bespectacled man was someone she knew. His face was as familiar to her as if she had known him all her life but she could not recall who he was. He moved away from the car and began to come down the embankment, placing his feet carefully so that he wouldn't slip. He had on tan and white shoes and no socks, and his ankles were red and thin. "Good afternoon," he said. "I see you all had you a little spill."<br />"We turned over twice!" said the grandmother.<br />"Once", he corrected. "We seen it happen. Try their car and see will it run, Hiram," he said quietly to the boy with the gray hat.<br />"What you got that gun for?" John Wesley asked. "Whatcha gonna do with that gun?"<br />"Lady," the man said to the children's mother, "would you mind calling them children to sit down by you? Children make me nervous. I want all you all to sit down right together there where you're at."<br />"What are you telling US what to do for?" June Star asked.<br />Behind them the line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth. "Come here," said their mother.<br />"Look here now," Bailey began suddenly, "we're in a predicament! We're in . . ."<br />The grandmother shrieked. She scrambled to her feet and stood staring. "You're The Misfit!" she said. "I recognized you at once!"<br />"Yes'm," the man said, smiling slightly as if he were pleased in spite of himself to be known, "but it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn't of reckernized me."<br />Bailey turned his head sharply and said something to his mother that shocked even the children. The old lady began to cry and The Misfit reddened.<br />"Lady," he said, "don't you get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don't mean. I don't reckon he meant to talk to you thataway."<br />"You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you?" the grandmother said and removed a clean handkerchief from her cuff and began to slap at her eyes with it.<br />The Misfit pointed the toe of his shoe into the ground and made a little hole and then covered it up again. "I would hate to have to," he said.<br />"Listen," the grandmother almost screamed, "I know you're a good man. You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!"<br />"Yes mam," he said, "finest people in the world." When he smiled he showed a row of strong white teeth. "God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy's heart was pure gold," he said. The boy with the red sweat shirt had come around behind them and was standing with his gun at his hip. The Misfit squatted down on the ground. "Watch them children, Bobby Lee," he said. "You know they make me nervous." He looked at the six of them huddled together in front of him and he seemed to be embarrassed as if he couldn't think of anything to say. "Ain't a cloud in the sky," he remarked, looking up at it. "Don't see no sun but don't see no cloud neither."<br />"Yes, it's a beautiful day," said the grandmother. "Listen," she said, "you shouldn't call yourself The Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell."<br />"Hush!" Bailey yelled. "Hush! Everybody shut up and let me handle this!" He was squatting in the position of a runner about to sprint forward but he didn't move.<br />"I pre-chate that, lady," The Misfit said and drew a little circle in the ground with the butt of his gun.<br />"It'll take a half a hour to fix this here car," Hiram called, looking over the raised hood of it.<br />"Well, first you and Bobby Lee get him and that little boy to step over yonder with you," The Misfit said, pointing to Bailey and John Wesley. "The boys want to ast you something," he said to Bailey. "Would you mind stepping back in them woods there with them?"<br />"Listen," Bailey began, "we're in a terrible predicament! Nobody realizes what this is," and his voice cracked. His eyes were as blue and intense as the parrots in his shirt and he remained perfectly still.<br />The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground. Hiram pulled Bailey up by the arm as if he were assisting an old man. John Wesley caught hold of his father's hand and Bobby I,ee followed. They went off toward the woods and just as they reached the dark edge, Bailey turned and supporting himself against a gray naked pine trunk, he shouted, "I'll be back in a minute, Mamma, wait on me!"<br />"Come back this instant!" his mother shrilled but they all disappeared into the woods.<br />"Bailey Boy!" the grandmother called in a tragic voice but she found she was looking at The Misfit squatting on the ground in front of her. "I just know you're a good man," she said desperately. "You're not a bit common!"<br />"Nome, I ain't a good man," The Misfit said after a second ah if he had considered her statement carefully, "but I ain't the worst in the world neither. My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. 'You know,' Daddy said, 'it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He's going to be into everything!"' He put on his black hat and looked up suddenly and then away deep into the woods as if he were embarrassed again. "I'm sorry I don't have on a shirt before you ladies," he said, hunching his shoulders slightly. "We buried our clothes that we had on when we escaped and we're just making do until we can get better. We borrowed these from some folks we met," he explained.<br />"That's perfectly all right," the grandmother said. "Maybe Bailey has an extra shirt in his suitcase."<br />"I'll look and see terrectly," The Misfit said.<br />"Where are they taking him?" the children's mother screamed.<br />"Daddy was a card himself," The Misfit said. "You couldn't put anything over on him. He never got in trouble with the Authorities though. Just had the knack of handling them."<br />"You could be honest too if you'd only try," said the grandmother. "Think how wonderful it would be to settle down and live a comfortable life and not have to think about somebody chasing you all the time."<br />The Misfit kept scratching in the ground with the butt of his gun as if he were thinking about it. "Yestm, somebody is always after you," he murmured.<br />The grandmother noticed how thin his shoulder blades were just behind his hat because she was standing up looking down on him. "Do you every pray?" she asked.<br />He shook his head. All she saw was the black hat wiggle between his shoulder blades. "Nome," he said.<br />There was a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely by another. Then silence. The old lady's head jerked around. She could hear the wind move through the tree tops like a long satisfied insuck of breath. "Bailey Boy!" she called.<br />"I was a gospel singer for a while," The Misfit said. "I been most everything. Been in the arm service both land and sea, at home and abroad, been twict married, been an undertaker, been with the railroads, plowed Mother Earth, been in a tornado, seen a man burnt alive oncet," and he looked up at the children's mother and the little girl who were sitting close together, their faces white and their eyes glassy; "I even seen a woman flogged," he said.<br />"Pray, pray," the grandmother began, "pray, pray . . ."<br />I never was a bad boy that I remember of," The Misfit said in an almost dreamy voice, "but somewheres along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the penitentiary. I was buried alive," and he looked up and held her attention to him by a steady stare.<br />"That's when you should have started to pray," she said. "What did you do to get sent to the penitentiary that first time?"<br />"Turn to the right, it was a wall," The Misfit said, looking up again at the cloudless sky. "Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor. I forget what I done, lady. I set there and set there, trying to remember what it was I done and I ain't recalled it to this day. Oncet in a while, I would think it was coming to me, but it never come."<br />"Maybe they put you in by mistake," the old lady said vaguely.<br />"Nome," he said. "It wasn't no mistake. They had the papers on me."<br />"You must have stolen something," she said.<br />The Misfit sneered slightly. "Nobody had nothing I wanted," he said. "It was a head-doctor at the penitentiary said what I had done was kill my daddy but I known that for a lie. My daddy died in nineteen ought nineteen of the epidemic flu and I never had a thing to do with it. He was buried in the Mount Hopewell Baptist churchyard and you can go there and see for yourself."<br />"If you would pray," the old lady said, "Jesus would help you."<br />"That's right," The Misfit said.<br />"Well then, why don't you pray?" she asked trembling with delight suddenly.<br />"I don't want no hep," he said. "I'm doing all right by myself."<br />Bobby Lee and Hiram came ambling back from the woods. Bobby Lee was dragging a yellow shirt with bright blue parrots in it.<br />"Thow me that shirt, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. The shirt came flying at him and landed on his shoulder and he put it on. The grandmother couldn't name what the shirt reminded her of. "No, lady," The Misfit said while he was buttoning it up, "I found out the crime don't matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you're going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it."<br />The children's mother had begun to make heaving noises as if she couldn't get her breath. "Lady," he asked, "would you and that little girl like to step off yonder with Bobby Lee and Hiram and join your husband?"<br />"Yes, thank you," the mother said faintly. Her left arm dangled helplessly and she was holding the baby, who had gone to sleep, in the other. "Hep that lady up, Hiram," The Misfit said as she struggled to climb out of the ditch, "and Bobby Lee, you hold onto that little girl's hand."<br />"I don't want to hold hands with him," June Star said. "He reminds me of a pig."<br />The fat boy blushed and laughed and caught her by the arm and pulled her off into the woods after Hiram and her mother.<br />Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her but woods. She wanted to tell him that he must pray. She opened and closed her mouth several times before anything came out. Finally she found herself saying, "Jesus. Jesus," meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing.<br />"Yes'm, The Misfit said as if he agreed. "Jesus shown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me. Of course," he said, "they never shown me my papers. That's why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get you a signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then you'll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you'll have something to prove you ain't been treated right. I call myself The Misfit," he said, "because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment."<br />There was a piercing scream from the woods, followed closely by a pistol report. "Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain't punished at all?"<br />"Jesus!" the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money I've got!"<br />"Lady," The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, "there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip."<br />There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, "Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!" as if her heart would break.<br />"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.<br />"Maybe He didn't raise the dead," the old lady mumbled, not knowing what she was saying and feeling so dizzy that she sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her.<br />"I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't," The Misfit said. "I wisht I had of been there," he said, hitting the ground with his fist. "It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known. Listen lady," he said in a high voice, "if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now." His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children !" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.<br />Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky.<br />Without his glasses, The Misfit's eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenseless-looking. "Take her off and thow her where you thown the others," he said, picking up the cat that was rubbing itself against his leg.<br />"She was a talker, wasn't she?" Bobby Lee said, sliding down the ditch with a yodel.<br />"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."<br />"Some fun!" Bobby Lee said.<br />"Shut up, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life." </span>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-30185169614306678772008-06-19T21:03:00.003-05:002008-06-19T21:24:18.589-05:00footnotes are your friend<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZqKdgIJ7wa5Jai4DdqSd8cqAIIs1fJoRSxGEGLW-qdA9JdHWLEykzqk1J1IT5f_sNYT7Dnun_jWScSXlAlGHIyjjq9YCvNOq_5RSinPH5leligVDUfDtaj5k_cGu558oVbzAXmrQ2Awpi/s1600-h/eliot.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZqKdgIJ7wa5Jai4DdqSd8cqAIIs1fJoRSxGEGLW-qdA9JdHWLEykzqk1J1IT5f_sNYT7Dnun_jWScSXlAlGHIyjjq9YCvNOq_5RSinPH5leligVDUfDtaj5k_cGu558oVbzAXmrQ2Awpi/s320/eliot.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213779556814533218" border="0" /></a>*seriously. don't forget to scroll down.<br /><br />few things in life are as awesome as this poem: the smell of coffee at 5am; that moment before you fall into a really deep sleep when you realize that your mind is completely empty; an entire album that you can listen to from start to finish without skipping a single track. but even among those things, eliot unfailingly prufrocks my world every time i read this. yeah, i went there.<br /><br />maybe i just relate to the modernists, or maybe the puns are just more readily available - either way, one man's narrative of his isolation, social anxiety, and inability to tolerate vacuous small talk just makes sense to me. there's something about the socially awkward that i find endearing. eliot was unafraid of revealing the most intimate, embarrassing aspects of humanity only to slap readers in the face with a metaphorical white glove by alluding to an epic poem or classical artwork in order to reveal the contrasting tension between the past and present, permeating his writing with melancholy.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><br /><br /><br /><br />Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)</span><br /></div><div align="center"><div style="text-align: left;"> </div> <h3><span style="font-size:180%;">The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock</span></h3> </div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /><br /><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="line"> S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="line"> A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="line"> Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="line"> Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="line"> Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="line"> Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#7"> 1 </a></span><span class="line">Let us go then, you and I,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 2</span><span class="line"> When the evening is spread out against the sky</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#9"> 3 </a></span><span class="line">Like a patient etherized upon a table;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 4</span><span class="line"> Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 5</span><span class="line"> The muttering retreats</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 6</span><span class="line"> Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 7</span><span class="line"> And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 8</span><span class="line"> Streets that follow like a tedious argument</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 9</span><span class="line"> Of insidious intent</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 10 </span><span class="line">To lead you to an overwhelming question ...</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 11 </span><span class="line">Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 12 </span><span class="line">Let us go and make our visit.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 13</span><span class="line"> In the room the women come and go</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#20"> 14</a></span><span class="line"> Talking of Michelangelo.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 15</span><span class="line"> The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 16 </span><span class="line">The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 17</span><span class="line"> Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 18 </span><span class="line">Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 19</span><span class="line"> Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 20</span><span class="line"> Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 21</span><span class="line"> And seeing that it was a soft October night,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 22</span><span class="line"> Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 23</span><span class="line"> And indeed there will be time</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 24</span><span class="line"> For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 25</span><span class="line"> Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 26</span><span class="line"> There will be time, there will be time</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 27</span><span class="line"> To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 28</span><span class="line"> There will be time to murder and create,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#35"> 29</a></span><span class="line"> And time for all the works and days of hands</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 30</span><span class="line"> That lift and drop a question on your plate;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 31</span><span class="line"> Time for you and time for me,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 32</span><span class="line"> And time yet for a hundred indecisions,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 33</span><span class="line"> And for a hundred visions and revisions,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 34</span><span class="line"> Before the taking of a toast and tea.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 35 </span><span class="line">In the room the women come and go</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 36</span><span class="line"> Talking of Michelangelo.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 37</span><span class="line"> And indeed there will be time</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 38</span><span class="line"> To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 39</span><span class="line"> Time to turn back and descend the stair,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 40</span><span class="line"> With a bald spot in the middle of my hair --</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 41</span><span class="line"> (They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!")</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#48"> 42</a></span><span class="line"> My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 43</span><span class="line"> My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin --</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 44</span><span class="line"> (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 45</span><span class="line"> Do I dare</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 46</span><span class="line"> Disturb the universe?</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 47</span><span class="line"> In a minute there is time</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 48</span><span class="line"> For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 49 </span><span class="line">For I have known them all already, known them all:</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 50</span><span class="line"> Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 51</span><span class="line"> I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#58"> 52</a></span><span class="line"> I know the voices dying with a dying fall</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 53</span><span class="line"> Beneath the music from a farther room.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 54</span><span class="line"> So how should I presume?</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 55</span><span class="line"> And I have known the eyes already, known them all--</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 56</span><span class="line"> The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 57</span><span class="line"> And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 58</span><span class="line"> When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 59</span><span class="line"> Then how should I begin</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#66"> 60</a></span><span class="line"> To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 61</span><span class="line"> And how should I presume?</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 62 </span><span class="line">And I have known the arms already, known them all--</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 63</span><span class="line"> Arms that are braceleted and white and bare</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 64</span><span class="line"> (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 65</span><span class="line"> Is it perfume from a dress</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 66</span><span class="line"> That makes me so digress?</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 67</span><span class="line"> Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 68</span><span class="line"> And should I then presume?</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 69</span><span class="line"> And how should I begin?</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 70 </span><span class="line">Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 71</span><span class="line"> And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 72</span><span class="line"> Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 73</span><span class="line"> I should have been a pair of ragged claws</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 74</span><span class="line"> Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="line"> * * * *</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 75</span><span class="line"> And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 76</span><span class="line"> Smoothed by long fingers,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 77</span><span class="line"> Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 78</span><span class="line"> Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 79</span><span class="line"> Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 80</span><span class="line"> Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 81</span><span class="line"> But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#89"> 82</a></span><span class="line"> Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#90"> 83</a></span><span class="line"> I am no prophet -- and here's no great matter;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 84</span><span class="line"> I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 85 </span><span class="line">And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 86</span><span class="line"> And in short, I was afraid.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 87</span><span class="line"> And would it have been worth it, after all,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 88</span><span class="line"> After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 89</span><span class="line"> Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 90</span><span class="line"> Would it have been worth while,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 91</span><span class="line"> To have bitten off the matter with a smile,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#99"> 92</a></span><span class="line"> To have squeezed the universe into a ball</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 93</span><span class="line">To roll it towards some overwhelming question,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#101"> 94</a></span><span class="line"> To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 95</span><span class="line"> Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all" --</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 96</span><span class="line"> If one, settling a pillow by her head</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 97</span><span class="line"> Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 98</span><span class="line"> That is not it, at all."</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 99</span><span class="line"> And would it have been worth it, after all,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 100 </span><span class="line">Would it have been worth while,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#108"> 101</a></span><span class="line"> After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 102</span><span class="line"> After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor --</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 103</span><span class="line"> And this, and so much more?--</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 104</span><span class="line"> It is impossible to say just what I mean!</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#112"> 105</a></span><span class="line"> But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 106</span><span class="line"> Would it have been worth while</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 107</span><span class="line"> If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 108</span><span class="line"> And turning toward the window, should say:</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 109</span><span class="line"> "That is not it at all,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 110</span><span class="line"> That is not what I meant, at all."</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#118"> 111 </a></span><span class="line">No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 112</span><span class="line"> Am an attendant lord, one that will do</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#120"> 113</a></span><span class="line"> To swell a progress, start a scene or two,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 114</span><span class="line"> Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 115</span><span class="line"> Deferential, glad to be of use,</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 116</span><span class="line"> Politic, cautious, and meticulous;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#124"> 117</a></span><span class="line"> Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 118</span><span class="line"> At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#126"> 119</a></span><span class="line"> Almost, at times, the Fool.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 120 </span><span class="line">I grow old ... I grow old ...</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#128"> 121</a></span><span class="line"> I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#129"> 122</a></span><span class="line"> Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 123</span><span class="line"> I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/781.html#131"> 124</a></span><span class="line"> I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 125</span><span class="line"> I do not think that they will sing to me.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="head"><br /></span></div><div class="a"><span class="numb"> 126 </span><span class="line">I have seen them riding seaward on the waves</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 127</span><span class="line"> Combing the white hair of the waves blown back</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 128</span><span class="line"> When the wind blows the water white and black.</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 129</span><span class="line"> We have lingered in the chambers of the sea</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 130</span><span class="line"> By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown</span></div> <div class="a"><span class="numb"> 131</span><span class="line"> Till human voices wake us, and we drown.</span></div> <p><b>Notes</b> </p><p><a name="7">1</a>] The epigraph comes from the <em>Inferno</em> of Dante's <em>Divine Comedy</em> (XXVII, 61-66). Count Guido da Montefeltro, embodied in a flame, replies to Dante's question about his identity as one condemned for giving lying advice: "If I believed that my answer would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would move no more, but because no one has ever returned alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can reply with no fear of infamy."<br /></p><p><a name="9">3</a>] etherized: anesthetized.<br /></p><p><a name="20">14</a>] Michaelangelo: Italian painter, poet, and sculptor (1475-1564).<br /></p><p><a name="35">29</a>] works and days: Hesiod's <em>Works and Days</em>, an 8th-century (B.C.) description of rural life.<br /></p><p><a name="48">42</a>] morning coat: a formal coat with tail.<br /></p><p><a name="58">52</a>] dying fall: love-sick Duke Orsino's opening line in Shakespeare's <em>Twelfth Night</em>, "That strain again! It had a dying fall" (I.i.1), referring to a piece of music. Cf. "Portrait of a Lady," line 122.<br /></p><p><a name="66">60</a>] butt-ends: the discarded, unsmoked ends of cigarettes or cigars.<br /></p><p><a name="89">82</a>] Herod gave John the Baptist's decapitated head to the dancer Salome as a reward (Mark 6.17-29; Matthew 14.3-11).<br /></p><p><a name="90">83</a>] I am no prophet: Amos said, "I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit" (Amos 7.14), when commanded by King Amaziah of Bethel not to prophesy.<br /></p><p><a name="99">92</a>] Cf. Andrew Marvell's "Let us roll all our strength, and all / Our sweetness, up into one ball" ("To his Coy Mistress").<br /></p><p><a name="101">94</a>] Lazarus: Jesus brought Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, back from the dead by literally entering his tomb and bringing out the recently buried man alive (John 11.1-44). Jesus also tells a parable of how the poor man Lazarus went to heaven, and the rich man Dives to hell, and how Dives begged Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his five brothers about damnation and was rebuked "if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke 16.19-31).<br /></p><p><a name="108">101</a>] sprinkled streets: necessary to keep the dust down.<br /></p><p><a name="112">105</a>] a magic lantern: device that throws a magnified image of a picture on glass onto a white screen in a dark room.<br /></p><p><a name="118">111</a>] Prince Hamlet: not Shakespeare's noble prince, who resisted the temptation to commit suicide in his "To be or not to be" speech (alluded to at line's end), but instead characters like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (cf. 112-16), Polonius (cf. 117), and Osric (cf. 118). Ezra Pound wrote Harriet Monroe on Jan. 31, 1915: </p><blockquote>I dislike the paragraph about Hamlet, but it is an early and cherished bit and T.E. won't give it up, and as it is the only portion of the poem that most readers will like at first reading, I don't see that it will do much harm" (<em>Letters of Ezra Pound 1907-1941</em>, ed. D. D. Paige [London: Faber and Faber, 1951]: 92-93).</blockquote><br /><p><a name="120">113</a>] progress: the travelling of a royal prince through the English countryside, from stop to stop, together with wagons loaded with possessions, and with servants and courtiers.<br /></p><p><a name="124">117</a>] high sentence: a phrase from Chaucer's <em>Canterbury Tales</em>, meaning "elevated, serious and moral thoughts expressed formally."<br /></p><p><a name="126">119</a>] the Fool: Shakespeare's plays have several characters called "the Fool," including the king's loyal servant and critic in <em>King Lear</em>.<br /></p><p><a name="128">121</a>] the bottoms of my trousers rolled: that is, with cuffs, a novelty in fashion.<br /></p><p><a name="129">122</a>] Shall I part my hair behind?: an avant-garde, potentially shocking hair-style.<br /></p><a name="131">124</a>] Cf. John Donne's "Song," with its "Teach me to hear mermaids singing." Arhtur Symons' <em>The Symbolist Movement in Literature</em> (London: Heinemann, 1899) quotes "El Desdichado" (`The Disinherited') by Gérard de Nerval(1808-55): "J'ai rêvé dans la grotte où nage la sirène" (`I have dreamed in the cave where the siren swims'; p. 37).ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-87191082277574184722008-06-19T19:54:00.003-05:002008-06-25T05:25:48.827-05:00now that's faulked up<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGqZAbwGG9Huqi0VvrJ1Dj-stbJ9xIxMFxTH3ZadJtn-oa3VKp1w1A7O28qE01OxZ67Gzl0UQJ6OyJEXunt9u8bq-x1zhm0HVdhtztaEnd8LvtH2sabzR7u6dzFzbM5767KrOOQpRGypYe/s1600-h/faulkner.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGqZAbwGG9Huqi0VvrJ1Dj-stbJ9xIxMFxTH3ZadJtn-oa3VKp1w1A7O28qE01OxZ67Gzl0UQJ6OyJEXunt9u8bq-x1zhm0HVdhtztaEnd8LvtH2sabzR7u6dzFzbM5767KrOOQpRGypYe/s320/faulkner.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215763301950791618" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><br /><br /><br />A Rose For Emily<br /><br />William Faulkner</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >manservant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps--an eyesore</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >battle of Jefferson.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >mayor--he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >streets without an apron--remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >year they mailed her a tax notice. February came, and there was no reply. They</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriff's office at her</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >They called a special meeting of the board of aldermen. A deputation waited</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >upon her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier. They were</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse--a close, dank smell. The Negro led</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >spinning with slow motes in the single sunray. On a tarnished gilt easel before</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >They rose when she entered--a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >another while the visitors stated their errand.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >watch ticking at the end of the gold chain.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >satisfy yourselves."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn't you get a notice</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >from the sheriff, signed by him?"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"I received a paper, yes," Miss Emily said. "Perhaps he considers himself the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >sheriff.... I have no taxes in Jefferson."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see. We must go by the--"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"But, Miss Emily--"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"See Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) "I</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these gentlemen</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >out."<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >So SHE VANQUISHED them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >fathers thirty years before about the smell. That was two years after her father's</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >death and a short time after her sweetheart--the one we believed would marry</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >her--had deserted her. After her father's death she went out very little; after her</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. A few of the ladies had the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >was the Negro man --a young man then--going in and out with a market basket.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly," the ladies said; so</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"But what will you have me do about it, madam?" he said.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"Why, send her word to stop it," the woman said. "Isn't there a law?"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"I'm sure that won't be necessary, "Judge Stevens said. "It's probably just a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >diffident deprecation. "We really must do something about it, Judge. I'd be the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we've got to do something." That</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >night the board of aldermen met--three greybeards and one younger man, a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >member of the rising generation.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"It's simple enough," he said. "Send her word to have her place cleaned up. Give</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >her a certain time to do it in, and if she don't. . ."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"Damn it, sir," Judge Stevens said, "will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >bad?"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder. They broke open the cellar door and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings. As they recrossed the lawn, a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol. They crept quietly across</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the lawn and into the shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >two the smell went away.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >That was when people had begun to feel really sorry for her. People in our town,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >last, believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >really were. None of the young men were quite good enough to Miss Emily and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >such. We had long thought of them as a tableau; Miss Emily a slender figure in</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the backflung</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >down all of her chances if they had really materialized.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >condolence and aid, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >quickly.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >will.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >SHE WAS SICK for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >church windows--sort of tragic and serene.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks, and in the summer</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >after her father's death they began the work. The construction company came</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >with riggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron, a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Yankee--a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The little boys would follow in groups to hear him cuss the riggers, and the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >riggers singing in time to the rise and fall of picks. Pretty soon he knew</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >everybody in town. Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group. Presently we began</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >At first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest, because the ladies</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >all said, "Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >laborer." But there were still others, older people, who said that even grief could</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige--without calling it noblesse oblige.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >They just said, "Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her." She had some kin</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >in Alabama; but years ago her father had fallen out with them over the estate of</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >old lady Wyatt, the crazy woman, and there was no communication between the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >two families. They had not even been represented at the funeral.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >And as soon as the old people said "Poor Emily," the whispering</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >began. "Do you suppose it's really so?" they said to one another. "Of course it is.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >What else could . . ." This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clopclop-</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >clop of the matched team passed: "Poor Emily."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >She carried her head high enough--even when we believed that she was fallen. It</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >imperviousness. Like when she bought the rat poison, the arsenic. That was over</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >a year after they had begun to say "Poor Emily," and while the two female</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >cousins were visiting her.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"I want some poison," she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eye sockets as</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >you imagine a lighthouse keeper's face ought to look. "I want some poison," she</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >said.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I'd recoin--"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"I want the best you have. I don't care what kind."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The druggist named several. "They'll kill anything up to an elephant. But what</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >you want is--"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"Arsenic," Miss Emily said. "Is that a good one?"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma'am. But what you want--"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"I want arsenic."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >strained flag. "Why, of course," the druggist said. "If that's what you want. But the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >When she opened the package at home, there was written on the box, under the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >skull and bones: "For rats."<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >SO THE NEXT DAY we all said, "She will kill herself"; and we said it would be</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the best thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >said, "She will marry him." Then we said, "She will persuade him yet," because</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Homer himself had remarked--he liked men, and it was known that he drank with</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the younger men in the Elks Club--that he was not a marrying man. Later we said</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >"Poor Emily" behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >glittering buggy, Miss Emily with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >cocked and a cigar in his teeth, reins and whip in a yellow glove.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >bad example to the young people. The men did not want to interfere, but at last</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the ladies forced the Baptist minister--Miss Emily's people were Episcopal--to call</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >upon her. He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >refused to go back again. The next Sunday they again drove about the streets,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >and the following day the minister's wife wrote to Miss Emily's relations in</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Alabama.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >So she had blood kin under her roof again and we sat back to watch</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >developments . At first nothing happened. Then we were sure that they</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >were to be married. We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jeweler's and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >ordered a man's toilet set in silver, with the letters H.B. on each piece. Two days</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >later we learned that she had bought a complete outfit of men's clothing,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >including a nightshirt, and we said, "They are married." We were really glad. We</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >were glad because the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Emily had ever been.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >So we were not surprised when Homer Barron--the streets had been finished</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >some time since--was gone. We were a little disappointed that there was not a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >public blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Emily's coming, or to give her a chance to get rid of the cousins. (By that time it</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >was a cabal, and we were all Miss Emily's allies to help circumvent the cousins.)</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Sure enough, after another week they departed. And, as we had expected all</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >along, within three days Homer Barron was back in town. A neighbor saw the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >remained closed. Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the men did that night when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >she did not appear on the streets. Then we knew that this was to be expected</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >too; as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman's life so many</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >times had been too virulent and too furious to die.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >During the next few years it grew greyer and greyer until it attained an even</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >pepper-and-salt iron gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron gray, like the hair of an active man.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >painting. She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms, where the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries were sent to</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were sent to church</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate. Meanwhile her</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >taxes had been remitted.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >with boxes of color and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladles'</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >magazines. The front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >good. When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >would not listen to them.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow greyer and more stooped,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >going in and out with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >notice, which would be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. Now</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows--she had evidently</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >shut up the top floor of the house--like the carven torso of an idol in a niche,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >doddering Negro man to wait on her. We did not even know she was sick; we</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro. He talked to</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >from disuse.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >her grey head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >sunlight.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The negro met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >disappeared. He walked right through the house and out the back and was not</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >seen again.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The two female cousins came at once. They held the funeral on the second day,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men--some in their brushed</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >bottleneck of the most recent decade of years.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Already we knew that there was one room in that region abovestairs which no</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valence curtains of faded rose</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >in the dust. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >shoes and the discarded socks.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >The man himself lay in the bed.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay;</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >and biding dust.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;" >and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-grey hair.</span></span>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-6318237506933464702008-06-18T07:30:00.008-05:002008-06-18T21:56:16.388-05:00this is what keeps me up at night<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix63W2nuegIJ9XIVfSmJ0Pwq9wiikf8WQxHQ2ysMJbGvH_0ZuE6qftcBXMfErSzapN6sBxQ6T0yTIU_U5AG7kb2PKy0SJczn_200VJghYj02mYQBrlCvC8p_DOLvW71m4DGeRwXP9hQHrj/s1600-h/wfaulkner.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213207579857061874" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 255px; height: 297px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix63W2nuegIJ9XIVfSmJ0Pwq9wiikf8WQxHQ2ysMJbGvH_0ZuE6qftcBXMfErSzapN6sBxQ6T0yTIU_U5AG7kb2PKy0SJczn_200VJghYj02mYQBrlCvC8p_DOLvW71m4DGeRwXP9hQHrj/s320/wfaulkner.jpg" border="0" height="343" width="255" /></a><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,<br /></span><a name="25"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">To the last syllable of recorded time;<br /></span><a name="26"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">And all our yesterdays have lighted fools<br /></span><a name="27"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!<br /><br />Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player<br /></span><a name="29"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,<br /></span><a name="30"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">And then is heard no more; it is a tale<br /></span><a name="31"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,<br /><br />Signifying nothing.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">Macbeth V.v. 24-33</span><br /><br />i am obsessed with william faulkner. actually, the word "obsess" doesn't even begin to cover it - i want to steal his brain and inject his genius into my veins so that i too can be maddeningly brilliant. it takes real patience and determination to make it through <em>the sound and the fury</em>, but the result is more rewarding than any other novel i have read (except, perhaps, <em>absalom, absalom! and one hundred years of solitude</em>). mulling over the novel, it strikes me just how appropriate/incredible/there are no words for the sheer brilliance the allusion to <em>macbeth</em> V.v. 24-33 is to the content of the novel. i turn the lines over again and again in my mind and can't help but wonder if faulkner means it in a cheeky way as well since he is prone to infuse everything he does with multiple levels of meaning: is he the idiot telling the tale? the obvious reference is to benjy, since his section clearly reflects this idea, but faulkner's own words on writing the sound and the fury leads me to believe that there is more to this than initially presents itself. exhibit a, from an interview with faulkner:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">"since none of my work has met my own standards, i must judge it on the basis of that one which caused me the most grief and anguish, as the mother loves the child who became the thief or murderer more than the one who became the priest."<br /></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">faulkner has also called the novel his "most splendid failure" because he was never really satisfied with the way it turned out.</span><br /><br />okay, so maybe it's not the brainstorm of the century to figure out that faulkner is probably referring to himself in a tongue-in-cheek way with the allusion to <em>macbeth</em>, but it's enough of a revelation to have kept my mind occupied for the past week. more than that, i'm also inspired by the way each section reflects a bit of the allusion, such as quentin's section and his "walking shadow" or jason's section, in which he makes himself out to be the "poor player." i often wonder if authors set out to be geniuses or if it just sort of falls together for them. with faulkner, i believe that there was a real, concerted effort to forge <em>the sound and the fury</em> into the masterpiece that it is. perhaps nothing is coincidental about the craftsmanship of this book, but the bittersweet beauty of it lies in faulkner's own dissatisfaction with it which, oddly, gives me a tinge of hope that maybe we are all capable of creating something this "splendid" if only we are willing to fail in our own minds.ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-63548170550985645622008-06-17T22:56:00.002-05:002008-06-17T22:59:17.068-05:00quiet girl<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGwg7mf13vWupkoqZKWPpPP4GsBFd8DmLcndClq4F59HsfJ-cBK4Uhle-jMP6ldcYB6icrZ_T84hMebA2qkCAlcQvNKPzuy4qtqSm_r0UjfqYPEj-QXCpReZ0quC-aEBrXV19TSO3tRgbP/s1600-h/langstonhughes.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGwg7mf13vWupkoqZKWPpPP4GsBFd8DmLcndClq4F59HsfJ-cBK4Uhle-jMP6ldcYB6icrZ_T84hMebA2qkCAlcQvNKPzuy4qtqSm_r0UjfqYPEj-QXCpReZ0quC-aEBrXV19TSO3tRgbP/s320/langstonhughes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213066074975854962" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:+2;">Quiet Girl<br /><br />Langston Hughes<br /></span> <p><span style="font-size:+1;">I would liken you<br />To a night without stars<br />Were it not for your eyes.<br />I would liken you<br />To a sleep without dreams<br />Were it not for your songs.</span></p>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-40245699846245262742008-06-15T00:25:00.008-05:002008-06-19T20:54:11.285-05:00diving into the wreck<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5WXCi7tiBriuP0X_nzQpKxu4F0eLEwN3T5b3OXyn005_pANrmpzY2a7aam1G5d1nTdZMlbQswT7fvB2uhAqgQ5NkK9IWF8iIgwUEfdcF1R6ykxo5BftTYpXFZMTkdVZxR9tzKIMWsIZa/s1600-h/adrienne_rich_04.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211975949660206226" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; cursor: pointer; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5WXCi7tiBriuP0X_nzQpKxu4F0eLEwN3T5b3OXyn005_pANrmpzY2a7aam1G5d1nTdZMlbQswT7fvB2uhAqgQ5NkK9IWF8iIgwUEfdcF1R6ykxo5BftTYpXFZMTkdVZxR9tzKIMWsIZa/s320/adrienne_rich_04.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >i have read a good deal of criticism of this poem, much of which insists that it is about discovering feminism and transforming the experience from the personal to the political - you know, changing the course of patriarchy's power to actually generate change. all of this is fine and dandy, but sometimes a poem can be interpreted on multiple levels, all of which are valid. for me "diving into the wreck" is more about social isolation and is a postmodern description of the experience of interacting with people. i look at it as going beyond the surface to discover the things that really matter about a person and engaging people enough to create a meaningful connection. but as levar burton always says on reading rainbow, "you don't have to take my word for it!"</span><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><br /></span><pre style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:180%;">Adrienne Rich<br /><br />Diving Into the Wreck<br /><br /></span>First having read the book of myths,<br /><br />and loaded the camera,<br /><br />and checked the edge of the knife-blade,<br /><br />I put on<br /><br />the body-armor of black rubber<br /><br />the absurd flippers<br /><br />the grave and awkward mask.<br /><br />I am having to do this<br /><br />not like Cousteau with his<br /><br />assiduous team<br /><br />aboard the sun-flooded schooner<br /><br />but here alone.<br /><br /><br /><br />There is a ladder.<br /><br />The ladder is always there<br /><br />hanging innocently<br /><br />close to the side of the schooner.<br /><br />We know what it is for,<br /><br />we who have used it.<br /><br />Otherwise<br /><br />it is a piece of maritime floss<br /><br />some sundry equipment.<br /><br /><br /><br />I go down.<br /><br />Rung after rung and still<br /><br />the oxygen immerses me<br /><br />the blue light<br /><br />the clear atoms<br /><br />of our human air.<br /><br />I go down.<br /><br />My flippers cripple me,<br /><br />I crawl like an insect down the ladder<br /><br />and there is no one<br /><br />to tell me when the ocean<br /><br />will begin.<br /><br /><br /><br />First the air is blue and then<br /><br />it is bluer and then green and then<br /><br />black I am blacking out and yet<br /><br />my mask is powerful<br /><br />it pumps my blood with power<br /><br />the sea is another story<br /><br />the sea is not a question of power<br /><br />I have to learn alone<br /><br />to turn my body without force<br /><br />in the deep element.<br /><br /><br /><br />And now: it is easy to forget<br /><br />what I came for<br /><br />among so many who have always<br /><br />lived here<br /><br />swaying their crenellated fans<br /><br />between the reefs<br /><br />and besides<br /><br />you breathe differently down here.<br /><br /><br /><br />I came to explore the wreck.<br /><br />The words are purposes.<br /><br />The words are maps.<br /><br />I came to see the damage that was done<br /><br />and the treasures that prevail.<br /><br />I stroke the beam of my lamp<br /><br />slowly along the flank<br /><br />of something more permanent<br /><br />than fish or weed<br /><br /><br /><br />the thing I came for:<br /><br />the wreck and not the story of the wreck<br /><br />the thing itself and not the myth<br /><br />the drowned face always staring<br /><br />toward the sun<br /><br />the evidence of damage<br /><br />worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty<br /><br />the ribs of the disaster<br /><br />curving their assertion<br /><br />among the tentative haunters.<br /><br /><br /><br />This is the place.<br /><br />And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair<br /><br />streams black, the merman in his armored body.<br /><br />We circle silently<br /><br />about the wreck<br /><br />we dive into the hold.<br /><br />I am she: I am he<br /><br /><br /><br />whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes<br /><br />whose breasts still bear the stress<br /><br />whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies<br /><br />obscurely inside barrels<br /><br />half-wedged and left to rot<br /><br />we are the half-destroyed instruments<br /><br />that once held to a course<br /><br />the water-eaten log<br /><br />the fouled compass<br /><br /><br /><br />We are, I am, you are<br /><br />by cowardice or courage<br /><br />the one who find our way<br /><br />back to this scene<br /><br />carrying a knife, a camera<br /><br />a book of myths<br /><br />in which<br /><br />our names do not appear.</pre>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-13564120768992564992008-06-12T11:25:00.005-05:002008-06-15T00:23:59.668-05:00making love to concrete<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1TFMUCEMZQYW_qapF97EoDcT4KkLB3739oHB5XTfXqtg7jaP0XRPas7x-falpB_xZhtm_gw0jkFeSLfi6Eut7wRJc6r6BGd1x9N-LORZrU2uZBTgOynbFW1DsD9nVj9XW3NJzthEmCsPE/s1600-h/audre+lorde.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1TFMUCEMZQYW_qapF97EoDcT4KkLB3739oHB5XTfXqtg7jaP0XRPas7x-falpB_xZhtm_gw0jkFeSLfi6Eut7wRJc6r6BGd1x9N-LORZrU2uZBTgOynbFW1DsD9nVj9XW3NJzthEmCsPE/s320/audre+lorde.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211349114573907298" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:-1;"><i>"I have come to believe over and over again, that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.... My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.... and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us. The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken."</i><br /> <b>Audre Lorde</b> (The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, Sister Outsider).<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br />Making Love to Concrete</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Audre Lorde</span><br /><br />An upright abutment in the mouth<br />of the Willis Avenue bridge<br />a beige Honda leaps the divider<br />like a steel gazelle inescapable<br />sleek leather boots on the pavement<br />rat-a-tat-tat best intentions<br />going down for the third time<br />stuck in the particular<br /><br />You cannot make love to concrete<br />if you care about being<br />non-essential wrong or worn thin<br />if you fear ever becoming<br />diamonds or lard<br />you cannot make love to concrete<br />if you cannot pretend<br />concrete needs your loving<br /><br />To make love to concrete<br />you need an indelible feather<br />white dresses before you are ten<br />a confirmation lace veil milk-large bones<br />and air raid drills in your nightmares<br />no stars till you go to the country<br />and one summer when you are twelve<br />Con Edison pulls the plugon the street-corner moons Walpurgisnachtand<br />there are sudden new lights in the sky<br />stone chips that forget you need<br />to become a light rope a hammer<br />a repeatable bridge<br />garden-fresh broccoli two dozen dropped eggs<br />and a hint of you<br />caught up between my fingers<br />the lesson of a wooden beam<br />propped up on barrels<br />across a mined terrain<br /><br />between forgiving too easily<br />and never giving at all.ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-69791793023533763952008-06-10T07:12:00.010-05:002008-06-19T20:59:08.492-05:001996 winner of the nobel prize in sassiness<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp62NE9fcmMYBlACKabqDnrbd-VPDqz0xQQ6ut8TZW52ERLOrQlft4-pmB80hLiPoZkQAq6uvtg17_sM_rzQo4QfsgVev73Dqt4YELI5doF_nb35oj4EESMzbof0Vel8beDlbiR1uAYPNN/s1600-h/szymborska.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp62NE9fcmMYBlACKabqDnrbd-VPDqz0xQQ6ut8TZW52ERLOrQlft4-pmB80hLiPoZkQAq6uvtg17_sM_rzQo4QfsgVev73Dqt4YELI5doF_nb35oj4EESMzbof0Vel8beDlbiR1uAYPNN/s320/szymborska.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5210225571313249730" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">i was first introduced to szymborska in the world literature class which is also responsible for my love affair with rainer maria rilke, gabriel garcia marquez, albert camus, czeslaw milosz, and numerous other authors. thanks, dr. crippen. szymborska's poetry is incredible because it is simple, earnest, very, very human and accessible. living in krakow since 1931, she endured the nazi occupation and therefore saw human nature at its best and its worst. her poetry intrigues me because it is consistently optimistic and hopeful, yet smacks of existentialism. what a lovely combination!</span><br /><h1 style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Wislawa Szymborska</span></span><br /></h1><h1 style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A Few Words on the Soul</span></h1> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">We have a soul at times.<br />No one’s got it non-stop,<br />for keeps.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">Day after day,<br />year after year<br />may pass without it.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">Sometimes<br />it will settle for awhile<br />only in childhood’s fears and raptures.<br />Sometimes only in astonishment<br />that we are old.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">It rarely lends a hand<br />in uphill tasks,<br />like moving furniture,<br />or lifting luggage,<br />or going miles in shoes that pinch.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">It usually steps out<br />whenever meat needs chopping<br />or forms have to be filled.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">For every thousand conversations<br />it participates in one,<br />if even that,<br />since it prefers silence.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">Just when our body goes from ache to pain,<br />it slips off-duty.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">It’s picky:<br />it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,<br />our hustling for a dubious advantage<br />and creaky machinations make it sick.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">Joy and sorrow<br />aren’t two different feelings for it.<br />It attends us<br />only when the two are joined.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">We can count on it<br />when we’re sure of nothing<br />and curious about everything.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">Among the material objects<br />it favors clocks with pendulums<br />and mirrors, which keep on working<br />even when no one is looking.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">It won’t say where it comes from<br />or when it’s taking off again,<br />though it’s clearly expecting such questions.</p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-family: times new roman;">We need it<br />but apparently<br />it needs us<br />for some reason too.</p><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><h1 style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102); font-weight: normal;font-family:times new roman;" class="documentFirstHeading"><span style="font-size:130%;">On Death,Without Exaggeration</span></h1><table style="font-family: times new roman; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); width: 439px; height: 1191px;" id="portal-columns"><tbody><tr><td id="portal-column-content"><div id="content" class=""><div><div class="documentContent" id="region-content"><div class="plain"> It can't take a joke,<br />find a star, make a bridge.<br />It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,<br />building ships, or baking cakes. <p>In our planning for tomorrow,<br />it has the final word,<br />which is always beside the point.</p> <p>It can't even get the things done<br />that are part of its trade:<br />dig a grave,<br />make a coffin,<br />clean up after itself.</p> <p>Preoccupied with killing,<br />it does the job awkwardly,<br />without system or skill.<br />As though each of us were its first kill.</p> <p>Oh, it has its triumphs,<br />but look at its countless defeats,<br />missed blows,<br />and repeat attempts!</p> <p>Sometimes it isn't strong enough<br />to swat a fly from the air.<br />Many are the caterpillars<br />that have outcrawled it.</p> <p>All those bulbs, pods,<br />tentacles, fins, tracheae,<br />nuptial plumage, and winter fur<br />show that it has fallen behind<br />with its halfhearted work.</p> <p>Ill will won't help<br />and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'etat<br />is so far not enough.</p> <p>Hearts beat inside eggs.<br />Babies' skeletons grow.<br />Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves<br />and sometimes even tall trees fall away.</p> <p>Whoever claims that it's omnipotent<br />is himself living proof<br />that it's not.</p> <p>There's no life<br />that couldn't be immortal<br />if only for a moment.</p> <p>Death<br />always arrives by that very moment too late.</p> <p>In vain it tugs at the knob<br />of the invisible door.<br />As far as you've come<br />can't be undone.</p> </div> <div id="relatedItems"> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div id="vsa-add-in-5"> </div> </div> </div> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <div style="font-family: times new roman; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> <div> <div id="vsa-add-in-6"> <!-- Start of StatCounter Code --> <script type="text/javascript"> var sc_project=2967778; var sc_invisible=0; var sc_partition=32; var sc_security="aaa9430e"; </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/counter_xhtml.js"></script><div class="statcounter"><a class="statcounter" href="http://www.statcounter.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://c33.statcounter.com/t.php?sc_project=2967778&resolution=1280&h=800&camefrom=http%3A//www.poetseers.org/nobel_prize_for_literature/wislawa_szymborska/library/&u=http%3A//www.poetseers.org/nobel_prize_for_literature/wislawa_szymborska/library/on_death__without_exaggeration/&t=On%20Death%2C%20Without%20Exaggeration%20%E2%80%94%20Poet%20Seers&java=1&security=aaa9430e&sc_random=0.9475683871141848" alt="StatCounter - Free Web Tracker and Counter" border="0" /></a></div> <noscript></noscript><!-- End of StatCounter Code --> </div> </div> </div> <div style="font-family: times new roman; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);" class="visualClear" id="clear-space-before-footer"><!-- --></div> <hr class="netscape4"> <em></em>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-6156634763472422082008-06-09T17:53:00.004-05:002008-06-11T08:12:30.483-05:00waiting for the spark from heaven to fall<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDP561xx9KsUtPAaCWLC06LmXS0X2mIFS0nLJpYrVXNs-CyXPQLGALdJOIOJFcfkiskXafZseOCKbvWB-a4Z-_RXTUvFmVXuVfcP3gaDmiFmbCz0G7RgOR5UIXkcEUNZ5tgau3aoqFoFeJ/s1600-h/matthew+arnold.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDP561xx9KsUtPAaCWLC06LmXS0X2mIFS0nLJpYrVXNs-CyXPQLGALdJOIOJFcfkiskXafZseOCKbvWB-a4Z-_RXTUvFmVXuVfcP3gaDmiFmbCz0G7RgOR5UIXkcEUNZ5tgau3aoqFoFeJ/s320/matthew+arnold.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5210219753735049650" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">with lambchops that rival the wooliness of an actual lamb, matthew arnold wrote some of the most arrogant, yet insightful criticism of the victorian era. arrogant in that he had the chops to criticize shakespeare; insightful in that is considered the first modernist critic and therefore influenced pimps like t.s eliot. any way you chop it, arnold was ahead of his time. despite my love/hate relationship with his literary criticism, i have to admit that the guy could write some pretty amazing poetry. behold "dover beach," the kind of poem for people who wear suits to the beach and prefer to contemplate death instead of boogie boarding or building sandcastles for crabs to inhabit. you know these people - you may even be one of them. and on that note, this one's for you. please to enjoy...</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);" class="body">"Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">" (Matthew Arnold) </span><br /><h2 style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"><br /></h2><h2 style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"><br /></h2><h2 style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">DOVER BEACH</h2> <h3 style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">By Matthew Arnold</h3><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">The sea is calm tonight,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">The tide is full, the moon lies fair</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Upon the straits; on the French coast the light</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Come to the window, sweet is the night air! </span><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> Only, from the long line of spray<br />Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,<br />Listen! you hear the grating roar<br />Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,<br />At their return, up the high strand,<br />Begin, and cease, and then again begin,<br />With tremulous cadence slow, and bring<br />The eternal note of sadness in. </p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> Sophocles long ago<br />Heard it on the Agean, and it brought<br />Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow<br />Of human misery; we<br />Find also in the sound a thought,<br />Hearing it by this distant northern sea. </p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> The Sea of Faith<br />Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore<br />Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.<br />But now I only hear<br />Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,<br />Retreating, to the breath<br />Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear<br />And naked shingles of the world. </p><p><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> Ah, love, let us be true</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">To one another! for the world, which seems</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">To lie before us like a land of dreams,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">So various, so beautiful, so new,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">And we are here as on a darkling plain</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Where ignorant armies clash by night.</span><br /></p><p> </p>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-60579896171225901962008-06-09T10:34:00.007-05:002008-06-09T17:18:50.332-05:00that's right, i love henry rollins<span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddCeIetUdA7n83lceFvVOcof3Jrwp7eZYg3MDcQ4o0PyTNWN531Ub9sLc74v2BP8-1DO_61yAaZztliWc9043xok3KQ6VK98OuQUfplX-ROmiYjmrQ0rPHRZ8Jsi31mogwwIpCKvFkNTt/s1600-h/rollins.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209907133075704882" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddCeIetUdA7n83lceFvVOcof3Jrwp7eZYg3MDcQ4o0PyTNWN531Ub9sLc74v2BP8-1DO_61yAaZztliWc9043xok3KQ6VK98OuQUfplX-ROmiYjmrQ0rPHRZ8Jsi31mogwwIpCKvFkNTt/s400/rollins.jpg" border="0" /></a></span> <span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-size:100%;" >henry rollins looks like he could eat your babies and tear a compact car in half with his bare hands, but underneath that rough exterior lies...well, a rough interior. rollins is great because he isn't afraid to show the world his dark side. his vulnerability is so endearing because it's raw, honest, and because it comes from a man who appears to lift weights with his neck. who would dare mock him? but the fact is, even if rollins weren't a tangible manifestation of unadulterated testosterone, he would probably still write this stuff because that's how he rolls. at least, that's what i like to think. this poem in particular is moving because it reveals his feminist side. and if a man like this can speak openly about relationships and his search for a "real woman," then there's hope for the future.<br /><br /></span><div align="left"><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);font-size:100%;" >solipsism is one of my favorite words/concepts. it is the idea that anything outside of the mind is not justified; that one's mind is all that exists, and that people shape their perspective, their actions, and their behavior on the worlds created by their minds. many of us live in our "safely solipsized" worlds without ever even knowing it or acknowledging it (those quotes are nabokov's genius words, not mine). i know i sure do. i became obsessed with the concept of solipsism while reading nabokov's <em>lolita</em>, and once i had wrapped my mind around it, i realized that i couldn't avoid it. solipsism is all that is modern and post-modern. think prufrock. think hemingway. hell, just think! it is who we are. solipsism is human nature, the human condition, the blunt, existentialist reality that we struggle against whether or not we realize it. when we do realize it, we can drive ourselves crazy trying to differentiate between reality and solipsism only to come to the conclusion that solipsism is reality - our own unique and indescribable reality that alienates us from one another, making a deeper connection seem impossible. this is that special kind of crazy that makes people stand on street corners armed with a microphone and a speaker, screaming "the end is near!" or "carrots, $1!!!" or perhaps even "she-la-la-la she-la-la-la messiah!!!"(props to edgar for that one)... whatever spreads your cheese. with this in mind, please to enjoy...</span></div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="center"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" ><br />Solipsist</span></div><div align="center"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >Henry Rollins </span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >For a while today, I hated you. I hated you for being so beautiful and real. I hated you for waking up at night to find your arms around me. I hated your honesty and the way you make people relax when you are around them. I hated you for loving me unconditionally. You have called me on years of cheap emotion and cruelty that came from my fears. When you look at me and smile I no longer feel scared or feel the need to run out of the room gasping for air. You don't make me feel like life is a waste of time and that all you get is cold sweating, dark moments in small rooms all over the world, spending time with other desperate characters who are tearing the path across the night skies of desolation. </span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >Could you believe that I didn't know what to do with your slow, warm affection? Could you believe I was scared by your endless giving giving giving? It took me a while to be able to feel welcomed by your strength that never shows off, never brags, but just nourishes and makes time stop. The feeling of hatred passed in the time it takes for an eye to twitch, and I realized that I have to take care of myself because I belong to someone. Someone is thinking of me right now. I never doubt it. I know you will always be there. Yeah, I'm in my room somewhere. It's freezing outside and I am exhausted. Too many things to do. Too many people to answer to all the time. From here I think of you. My body is wracked in pain and I am burning with fever. </span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >A lot of men want a woman to mother them. They get with a woman and all they do is regress to the point where you might think he might not be capable to take care of himself at all. I don't want another mother. I want a woman. I want to rise to the occasion. I want to learn and bask in your glow. I want to protect you and do whatever I can to give you strength. There is no twist to this. I am not about to blow my brains out. You have not cut me up like others have. It's just this. I want to love you with everything in me. I need your help because I don't know anything about it. I am suspicious and ready to leave and hit the cold road for the frozen dawn. I am just going to trust you with everything in me. I see now that it's the only reason to be here. After kissing you, I cannot remember what it was like to kiss any other woman. At this point I am not sure if I ever have. </span></div>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-53001676191029456722008-06-08T16:06:00.007-05:002008-06-09T12:23:43.224-05:00supermarket scandal!<center><h2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">i spend an inordinate of time in supermarkets, primarily because i get distracted by all the neon lights and the smooth, so-inoffensive-it's-offensive piped in muzak. i also keep hoping to run into walt whitman in the deli section, but so far, no luck. maybe that's why i love this poem so much. or maybe it's because ginsberg captures that feeling of being e</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">mpty and hollow despite the ability to buy almost anything you want - that side effect of the "amerikan dream" that no one warned you about. one thing is for sure: this poem possesses that quirky combination of kitsch combined with br</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">illiance unique to american literature. i hope you'll love it as much as i do.</span></span><br /></h2></center><center><h2 style="TEXT-ALIGN: left"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkAhktsPzNPua5aV1sUwIs-2CwM7p9SyHK9Y7H9BacuXluhB5WdViuS2c4ECAO5v-rdNp3oPRG8PwE0dBUIrwB2iNGj1zCilVoDZs1SXozxBzCQrT8ca7oPZI3DpVqbM3PniyVrNOY68V6/s1600-h/ginsberg.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209700702065331490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: pointer; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkAhktsPzNPua5aV1sUwIs-2CwM7p9SyHK9Y7H9BacuXluhB5WdViuS2c4ECAO5v-rdNp3oPRG8PwE0dBUIrwB2iNGj1zCilVoDZs1SXozxBzCQrT8ca7oPZI3DpVqbM3PniyVrNOY68V6/s400/ginsberg.jpg" border="0" /></a></h2></center><center><h2 style="COLOR: rgb(153,0,0)"><span style="font-size:180%;">A Supermarket </span></h2><h2 style="COLOR: rgb(153,0,0)"><span style="font-size:180%;"></span> </h2><h2 style="COLOR: rgb(153,0,0)"><span style="font-size:180%;">in </span></h2><h2 style="COLOR: rgb(153,0,0)"><span style="font-size:180%;"></span> </h2><h2 style="COLOR: rgb(153,0,0)"><span style="font-size:180%;">California</span></h2></center><center></center><center><br /><br /></center><center style="COLOR: rgb(153,0,0)"><span style="font-size:180%;"><b>By Allen Ginsberg</b></span></center><span style="COLOR: rgb(153,0,0);font-size:130%;" ><br />What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.<br />In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!<br />What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?<br /><br />I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.<br />I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?<br />I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.<br />We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.<br /><br />Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?<br />(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)<br />Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.<br /><br />Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?<br />Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?<br /><br />Berkeley, 1955</span>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-23681225316673679982008-06-07T23:56:00.007-05:002008-06-09T17:17:25.801-05:00i am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder<span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOeZLmWk-0asTzxPiG590MjYPUF29jfKyGyh6SN1Aw96aHXW259zgJMsy4FjAYkamy8XqJqh4NKzi2LlkJwMTzwyALrxwFdOd9JFHFiX63u09Bv42U3xhU_TFV6bzHZP_3IgScR90a-ZL/s1600-h/ferlinghetti.banned.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209633591335387810" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOeZLmWk-0asTzxPiG590MjYPUF29jfKyGyh6SN1Aw96aHXW259zgJMsy4FjAYkamy8XqJqh4NKzi2LlkJwMTzwyALrxwFdOd9JFHFiX63u09Bv42U3xhU_TFV6bzHZP_3IgScR90a-ZL/s320/ferlinghetti.banned.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:100%;" >ferlinghetti was the owner of city lights bookstore in san francisco. the underdog of the beat</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:100%;" > generation, his name is usually overshadowed by people like jack kerouac and allen ginsberg. but ferlinghetti was the man behind the scenes, editing manuscripts and publishing works that changed the face of literature, such as ginsberg's HOWL. " i am waiting" is one of my favorite poems because it captures a certain time in american history, when disillusionment collided with innovation, making ordinary people feel all out of sorts and prufrockian. today, we are so used to this feeling that it is hard to get excited about it, but ferlinghetti awakens something within me each time i read this, making my "rage against the machine" side resurface with renewed fervor. maybe you'll agree...</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /><br /></span><h1 style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I Am Waiting</span></h1><h2 style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">By Lawrence Ferlinghetti</span></h2><pre><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 204);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >I am waiting for my case to come up<br />and I am waiting<br />for a rebirth of wonder<br />and I am waiting for someone<br />to really discover America<br />and wail<br />and I am waiting<br />for the discovery<br />Of a new symbolic western frontier<br />and I am waiting<br />for the American Eagle<br />to really spread its wings<br />and straighten up and fly right<br />and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety<br />to drop dead<br />and I am waiting<br />for the war to be fought<br />which will make the world safe<br />for anarchy<br />and I am waiting for the final withering away<br />of all governments<br />and I am perpetually awaiting<br />a rebirth of wonder<br /><br /><br />I am waiting for the second coming<br />And I am waiting<br />For a religious revival<br />To sweep thru the state of Arizona<br />And I am waiting<br />For the grapes of wrath to stored<br />And I am waiting<br />For them to prove<br />That God is really American<br />And I am waiting<br />To see God on television<br />Piped into church altars<br />If they can find<br />The right channel<br />To tune it in on<br />And I am waiting<br />for the last supper to be served again<br />and a strange new appetizer<br />and I am perpetually awaiting<br />a rebirth of wonder<br /><br /><br />I am waiting for my number to be called<br />and I am waiting<br />for the Salvation Army to take over<br />and I am waiting<br />for the meek to be blessed<br />and inherit the earth<br />without taxes<br />and I am waiting<br />for forests and animals<br />to reclaim the earth as theirs<br />and I am waiting<br />for a way to be devised<br />to destroy all nationalisms<br />without killing anybody<br />and I am waiting<br />for linnets and planets to fall like rain<br />and I am waiting for lovers and weepers<br />to lie down together again<br />in a new rebirth of wonder<br /><br /><br />I am waiting for the great divide to be crossed<br />and I anxiously waiting<br />For the secret of eternal life to be discovered<br />By an obscure practitioner<br />and I am waiting<br />for the storms of life<br />to be over<br />and I am waiting to set sail for happiness<br />and I am waiting<br />for a reconstructed Mayflower<br />to reach America<br />with its picture story and TV rights<br />sold in advance to the natives<br />and I am waiting<br />for the lost music to sound again<br />in the Lost Continent<br />in a new rebirth of wonder<br /><br /><br />I am waiting for the day<br />that maketh all things clear<br />and I am waiting for retribution<br />for what America did to Tom Sawyer<br />and I am waiting<br />for the American Boy<br />to take off Beauty's clothes<br />and get on top of her<br />and I am waiting<br />for Alice in Wonderland<br />to retransmit to me<br />her total dream of innocence<br />and I am waiting<br />for Childe Roland to come<br />to the final darkest tower<br />and I am waiting for Aphrodite<br />to grow live arms<br />at a final disarmament conference<br />in a new rebirth of wonder<br /><br /><br />I am waiting<br />to get some intimations<br />of immortality<br />by recollecting my early childhood<br />and I am waiting<br />for the green mornings to come again<br />for some strains of unpremeditated art<br />to shake my typewriter<br />and I am waiting to write<br />the great indelible poem<br />and I am waiting<br />for the last long rapture<br />and I am perpetually waiting<br />for the fleeting lovers on the Grecian Urn<br />to catch each other at last<br />and embrace<br />and I am awaiting<br />perpetually and forever<br />a renaissance of wonder</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></pre>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-69768454029574800452008-06-07T12:55:00.001-05:002008-06-09T17:20:08.365-05:00tennyson: a wonderful, wooly wordsmith<span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoHCSri5PYzT2CI0pNdOavv6Q_5k_Rvsi8EgBG-FIxWRpSVboAO-eLl6fVaNod8ZhLkcuvnQM1L0kX1tVZpWLEtJp2YsdwZd_B8Pjg17OPYbkpkkzww7Fo7y2XK6Nt85jao6ZQlvq-izfd/s1600-h/tennyson.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoHCSri5PYzT2CI0pNdOavv6Q_5k_Rvsi8EgBG-FIxWRpSVboAO-eLl6fVaNod8ZhLkcuvnQM1L0kX1tVZpWLEtJp2YsdwZd_B8Pjg17OPYbkpkkzww7Fo7y2XK6Nt85jao6ZQlvq-izfd/s320/tennyson.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209214484806632034" border="0" /></a><br />i love me some tennyson. so much so that i actually wish i could grow a beard like his - okay, maybe not. but i would crawl up in his beard for days and sleep if i could.<br /><br />"the lotos-eaters" always amazes me because of its rich, vivid language - notice how the words have been chosen to roll off one's tongue lazily, translating the imagery of the poem into a sound that mimics its subject. right from the opening word "courage!" readers are drawn into the action, and the pace of the poem reflects its content, a technique that lends to the feeling of being right there with odysseus and his boys on this island.<br /><br />i think that everyone can relate to this poem in some way. after all, when faced with the prospect of struggling against a seemingly impossible task (such as returning to ithaka after the trojan war), who hasn't been seduced by the desire to just give up, lie down, and smoke some opium?<br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:verdana;">The Lotos-Eaters</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Alfred, Lord Tennyson</span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><table style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“C</span><span style="font-size:100%;">OURAGE!”</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> he said, and pointed toward the land,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="1"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="2"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the afternoon they came unto a land</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="3"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In which it seemed always afternoon.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="4"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">All round the coast the languid air did swoon,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="5"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="6"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="7"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="8"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="9"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="10"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="11"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="12"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="13"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">They saw the gleaming river seaward flow</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="14"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">From the inner land; far off, three mountain-tops,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="15"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="16"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Stood sunset-flush’d; and, dew’d with showery drops,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="17"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="18"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The charmed sunset linger’d low adown</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="19"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the red West; thro’ mountain clefts the dale</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="20"><i> </i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Was seen far inland, and the yellow down</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="21"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Border’d with palm, and many a winding vale</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="22"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And meadow, set with slender galingale;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="23"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A land where all things always seem’d the same!</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="24"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And round about the keel with faces pale,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="25"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="26"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="27"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="28"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="29"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To each, but whoso did receive of them</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="30"><i> </i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And taste, to him the gushing of the wave</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="31"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Far far away did seem to mourn and rave</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="32"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="33"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="34"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="35"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And music in his ears his beating heart did make.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="36"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">They sat them down upon the yellow sand,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="37"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Between the sun and moon upon the shore;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="38"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="39"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="40"><i> </i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Most weary seem’d the sea, weary the oar,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="41"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="42"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Then some one said, “We will return no more;”</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="43"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And all at once they sang, “Our island home</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="44"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.”</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="45"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">CHORIC SONG<br />I</span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />There is sweet music here that softer falls</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="46"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Than petals from blown roses on the grass,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="47"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Or night-dews on still waters between walls</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="48"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="49"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="50"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="51"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="52"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Here are cool mosses deep,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="53"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And thro’ the moss the ivies creep,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="54"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="55"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="56"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">II</span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="57"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And utterly consumed with sharp distress,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="58"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">While all things else have rest from weariness?</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="59"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">All things have rest: why should we toil alone,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="60"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We only toil, who are the first of things,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="61"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And make perpetual moan,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="62"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Still from one sorrow to another thrown;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="63"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Nor ever fold our wings,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="64"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And cease from wanderings,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="65"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="66"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="67"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“There is no joy but calm!”—</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="68"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="69"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">III</span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Lo! in the middle of the wood,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="70"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="71"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">With winds upon the branch, and there</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="72"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Grows green and broad, and takes no care,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="73"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Sun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="74"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="75"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Falls, and floats adown the air.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="76"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="77"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="78"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Drops in a silent autumn night.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="79"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">All its allotted length of days</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="80"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The flower ripens in its place,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="81"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="82"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="83"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">IV</span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Hateful is the dark-blue sky,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="84"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="85"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Death is the end of life; ah, why</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="86"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Should life all labor be?</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="87"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="88"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And in a little while our lips are dumb.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="89"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Let us alone. What is it that will last?</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="90"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">All things are taken from us, and become</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="91"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="92"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Let us alone. What pleasure can we have</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="93"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To war with evil? Is there any peace</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="94"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In ever climbing up the climbing wave?</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="95"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="96"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In silence—ripen, fall, and cease:</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="97"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="98"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">V</span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="99"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">With half-shut eyes ever to seem</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="100"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Falling asleep in a half-dream!</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="101"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="102"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="103"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To hear each other’s whisper’d speech;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="104"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Eating the Lotos day by day,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="105"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="106"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And tender curving lines of creamy spray;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="107"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To lend our hearts and spirits wholly</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="108"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="109"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To muse and brood and live again in memory,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="110"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">With those old faces of our infancy</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="111"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Heap’d over with a mound of grass,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="112"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="113"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">VI</span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="114"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And dear the last embraces of our wives</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="115"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And their warm tears; but all hath suffer’d change;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="116"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">For surely now our household hearths are cold,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="117"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="118"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="119"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Or else the island princes over-bold</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="120"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="121"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="122"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="123"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Is there confusion in the little isle?</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="124"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Let what is broken so remain.</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="125"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The Gods are hard to reconcile;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="126"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">’Tis hard to settle order once again.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="127"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There <i>is</i> confusion worse than death,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="128"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="129"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Long labor unto aged breath,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="130"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="131"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="132"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">VII</span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />But, propped on beds of amaranth and moly,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="133"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">How sweet—while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly—</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="134"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">With half-dropped eyelids still,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="135"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Beneath a heaven dark and holy,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="136"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To watch the long bright river drawing slowly</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="137"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">His waters from the purple hill—</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="138"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To hear the dewy echoes calling</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="139"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">From cave to cave thro’ the thick-twined vine—</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="140"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To watch the emerald-color’d water falling</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="141"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Thro’ many a woven acanthus-wreath divine!</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="142"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="143"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the pine.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="144"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">VIII</span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />The Lotos blooms below the barren peak,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="145"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The Lotos blows by every winding creek;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="146"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="147"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="148"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="149"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We have had enough of action, and of motion we,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="150"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="151"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="152"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="153"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="154"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="155"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="156"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="157"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="158"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="159"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="160"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="161"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="162"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="163"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="164"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="165"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="166"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="167"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’d—down in hell</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="168"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="169"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.</span></td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="170"><i> <br /></i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="171"></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;</span></td><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><a name="172"></a></span></td></tr> <tr style="font-family:verdana;"><td><span style="font-size:100%;">O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.</span></td></tr></tbody></table>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-54240871197020796322008-06-06T07:57:00.002-05:002008-07-01T07:10:12.643-05:00"ulysses" and "tithonus"<span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-5AJ5xutXZnrXp0DGlXolP0FosmDnqXzzperbk_3eMj4eHUjFAU3cNuMEsbyt_24cGLGZ4C41uJ_ftgBwZ3f5-l5mDZwiVIhn4VArEFk7aPfC68Oue2DIO2j90LBi-xxSs4OeE9TQtR6a/s1600-h/robin.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209223139247766018" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-5AJ5xutXZnrXp0DGlXolP0FosmDnqXzzperbk_3eMj4eHUjFAU3cNuMEsbyt_24cGLGZ4C41uJ_ftgBwZ3f5-l5mDZwiVIhn4VArEFk7aPfC68Oue2DIO2j90LBi-xxSs4OeE9TQtR6a/s320/robin.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;">eventually, i might post my own writing. when i'm comfortable exposing my soul to the heartless, faceless masses online and strong enough to face the rejection of people with nothing better to do than read my pointless blog, that is. oh, how cruel a mistress is anonymity!<br /><br />until then, you will have to be appeased with someone else's brilliant writing: tennyson's pendant poems "ulysses" and "tithonus," two works that are very close to my heart. these poems were written while tennyson was grieving the death of his closest friend, arthur henry hallam, and they helped me with my own grief after losing my oldest and dearest friend, robin edward tackett. as pendant poems, they are meant to be read together as each poem represents a different side of the same proverbial coin.<br /><br />if you only read one thing on the internet today, this will not disappoint. really, that water skiing squirrel will still be there tomorrow. besides, don't you owe it to yourself to experience beauty in its purest form: the malleable, rhythmic and hypnotic english language? please to enjoy...<br /><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,102); FONT-STYLE: italic">"ulysses" is the roman name for odysseus, the greek hero whose adventures are chronicled in</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,102); FONT-STYLE: italic"> the illiad</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,102); FONT-STYLE: italic"> and </span><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,102); FONT-STYLE: italic">the odyssey</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,102); FONT-STYLE: italic">. tennyson wrote this from the perspective of an aging ulysses looking back on his life near its end.</span><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" ><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Ulysses<br /><br /><br />Alfred, Lord Tennyson</span><br /></span><div title="Ulysses - Alfred Tennyson" style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-family:verdana;" ><p class="storymain"><span style="font-size:100%;">It little profits that an idle king,<br />By this still hearth, among these barren crags,<br />Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole<br />Unequal laws unto a savage race,<br />That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.<br />I cannot rest from travel; I will drink<br />Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd<br />Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those<br />That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when<br />Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades<br />Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;<br />For always roaming with a hungry heart<br />Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men<br />And manners, climates, councils, governments,<br />Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--<br />And drunk delight of battle with my peers,<br />Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.<br />I am a part of all that I have met;<br />Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'<br />Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades<br />For ever and for ever when I move.<br />How dull it is to pause, to make an end,<br />To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!<br />As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life<br />Were all too little, and of one to me<br />Little remains; but every hour is saved<br />From that eternal silence, something more,<br />A bringer of new things; and vile it were<br />For some three suns to store and hoard myself,<br />And this gray spirit yearning in desire<br />To follow knowledge like a sinking star,<br />Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.</span></p><p class="storymain"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is my son, mine own Telemachus,<br />to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--<br />Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill<br />This labor, by slow prudence to make mild<br />A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees<br />Subdue them to the useful and the good.<br />Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere<br />Of common duties, decent not to fail<br />In offices of tenderness, and pay<br />Meet adoration to my household gods,<br />When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.</span></p><p class="storymain"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">That ever with a frolic welcome took</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Death closes all; but something ere the end,</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Some work of noble note, may yet be done,</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">'T is not too late to seek a newer world.</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Push off, and sitting well in order smite</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Of all the western stars, until I die.</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">We are not now that strength which in old days</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">One equal temper of heroic hearts,</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)">To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.</span> </span></p></div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;">if you made it this far, you either have tears in your eyes and a panging in the hollow part of your soul - you know, the part of yourself you show to no one because its very vulnerability renders you defenseless against the "slings and arrows" of this bittersweet life - or you are stalking me. either way, at least you are reading great literature! so here is "tithonus," the pendant to "ulysses."<br /><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,102); FONT-STYLE: italic">tithonus was a mortal man who fell in love with aurora, the goddess of the dawn. always sensitive to the burgeoning fires of passionate love, the gods granted tithonus immortality, but not immortal youth; therefore, while his lover is renewed with each beginning day and remains at the pinnacle of her beauty for eternity, tithonus advances in age but cannot die. as a sidenote, swans can live for more than 50 years, a fun fact that hopefully enhances your reading of this poem.</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-size:130%;" >Tithonus</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-size:130%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-size:130%;" >Alfred, Lord Tennyson</span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,<br />The vapors weep their burthen to the ground,<br />Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,<br />And after many a summer dies the swan.<br />Me only cruel immortality<br />Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,<br />Here at the quiet limit of the world,<br />A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream<br />The ever-silent spaces of the East,<br />Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.<br /><br />Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man--<br />So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,<br />Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd<br />To his great heart none other than a God!<br />I ask'd thee, `Give me immortality.'<br />Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,<br />Like wealthy men who care not how they give.<br />But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills,<br />And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me,<br />And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd<br />To dwell in presence of immortal youth,<br />Immortal age beside immortal youth,<br />And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love,<br />Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now,<br />Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,<br />Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears<br />To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:<br />Why should a man desire in any way<br />To vary from the kindly race of men,<br />Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance<br />Where all should pause, as is most meet for all? </span><p style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-family:verdana;" align="left" ><span style="font-size:100%;">A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes<br />A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.<br />Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals<br />From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,<br />And bosom beating with a heart renew'd.<br />Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom,<br />Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,<br />Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team<br />Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,<br />And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes,<br />And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.</span></p><p style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-family:verdana;" align="left" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful<br />In silence, then before thine answer given<br />Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.</span></p><p style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-family:verdana;" align="left" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,<br />And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,<br />In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?<br />`The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.'</span></p><p style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-family:verdana;" align="left" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Ay me! ay me! with what another heart<br />In days far-off, and with what other eyes<br />I used to watch--if I be he that watch'd--<br />The lucid outline forming round thee; saw<br />The dim curls kindle into sunny rings;<br />Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood<br />Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all<br />Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,<br />Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm<br />With kisses balmier than half-opening buds<br />Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd<br />Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,<br />Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,<br />While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.<br /><br />Yet hold me not for ever in thine East:<br />How can my nature longer mix with thine?<br />Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold<br />Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet<br />Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam<br />Floats up from those dim fields about the homes<br />Of happy men that have the power to die,<br />And grassy barrows of the happier dead.<br />Release me, and restore me to the ground;<br />Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave:<br />Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;<br />I earth in earth forget these empty courts,<br />And thee returning on thy silver wheels.</span></p>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3811799131872981838.post-58345601492675422182008-06-06T02:08:00.001-05:002008-06-09T17:28:32.439-05:00my favorite poem<span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkAOEO2TwtD-KmoyIINSE9ja39VDPz_hEPJ8jtNsCUdOheniCKo027EXAPJfSfRM1EyWCs4U2h6u8gllrD8-w5p1Qt69RX3p2aDHowPMtYAL3wR5oH62DLIkir8LVqntHvvFQHLfeSXggb/s1600-h/countee_cullen2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkAOEO2TwtD-KmoyIINSE9ja39VDPz_hEPJ8jtNsCUdOheniCKo027EXAPJfSfRM1EyWCs4U2h6u8gllrD8-w5p1Qt69RX3p2aDHowPMtYAL3wR5oH62DLIkir8LVqntHvvFQHLfeSXggb/s320/countee_cullen2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209221080997024818" border="0" /></a><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">poetry allows you to see into people's souls. but not in a creepy way.<br /><br />here is a tiny slice of mine. i have loved this poem for years because cullen employs the shakespearean sonnet to its fullest extent, making the content of "yet do i marvel" reverberate with irony. iambic pentameter stresses the words that should be most emphasized in this poem (consider the stresses of the opening line: doubt, god, good, mean, kind) and offers a subtle backdrop that reinforces the poem's overall content. this is the kind of craftsmanship that brings my mind to its knees. more importantly, in choosing to write constantly in shakespearean sonnets, cullen proved to those who doubted the intellectual and artistic capacity of african-americans that not only could he write as well a dead white guy, but he could push the form to transcend its status as refuge for unrequited love to a higher ground for expressing paradoxical, theological issues that are intrinsic to humanity. reconciling the notion of an omnipotent god with all the suffering in the world is the kind of stuff that keeps scholars busy for a lifetime, yet cullen manages to express himself with perfect eloquence in a mere 14 lines. enjoy.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-size:130%;" >Countee Cullen<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left; color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"><span style="font-size:100%;">Yet Do I Marvel</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span></div></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" > </span><div style="text-align: left; color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And did He stoop to quibble could tell why<br /></span></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" > <span style="font-family:verdana;">The little buried mole continues blind, </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Why flesh that mirrors Him must someday die, </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">To struggle up a never-ending stair. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Inscrutable His ways are, and immune </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">To catechism by a mind too strewn </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">With petty cares to slightly understand </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">What awful brains compels His awful hand. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: </span><br />To make a poet black, and bid him sing!<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span>ulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12288525670091077473noreply@blogger.com0