>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ^E00:00:04 ^B00:00:22 >> Good morning, all you early-morning people in here to celebrate Emily Dickinson. My name is Rob Casper. I am the head of the Poetry and Literature Center here at the Library of Congress, and I would like to welcome you to our first ever Emily Dickinson Marathon Reading which is part of a day-long series of events honoring the Belle of Amherst. We are delighted to be working again with the Folger Shakespeare Library and its O.B. Hardison poetry series. For those of you who weren't here last year, we had an amazing district of literature festival in this very room with the Folger and with PEN/Faulkner. I'd like to especially thank Teri Cross Davis for helping to put this together and for continuing to work with me and with the Library. I would also like to thank the brain child of this marathon, Eleanor Higgenbotham, and the Emily Dickinson International Society for helping to promote the event. Elly [assumed spelling] will say a few words after me to kick things off and then we'll start with our first reader. Before that, I'd like to tell you a little bit about the Poetry and Literature Center here at the Library of Congress. The Center is home to the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry and for 75 years it has hosted programs of all kinds to help support literature. We keep on trying new and fun things out like today's event. You can read about the Center at our website, www.loc.gov/poetry. We also have a sign-up sheet on the table out in the foyer if you want to find out more about events like this and get information from the Emily Dickinson International society. Please do sign it up. Speaking of the Society, its website is www.emilydickinson internationalsociety.org, and O.B. Hardison's website is www.folger.edu/poetry. If you are up for a whole day of Dickinson , and if you are here this early I'm imagining you are, I would encourage you to go to the Folger tonight just down the street at 7:30 p.m. and hear acclaimed poet Rafael Campo give the Emily Dickinson birthday tribute. It should be a wonderful event and it is the reason we thought about creating this marathon reading today, so that we can be a part of that, that great tradition. And now to tell you more about this event and my favorite American poet please join me in welcoming Eleanor Higgenbotham. ^M00:02:57 [ Applause ] ^M00:03:03 >> Thank you all for coming so early in the morning "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive?" Emily Dickinson's 1862 outreach question to Thomas Wentworth Higginson has been answered. Although the outward bounds of her life she was born, lived, and died in Amherst, Massachusetts to one of its first families. Her industry and art of at least 1789 poems, her letter to the world, has had worldwide circumference. Bibliographies of critical and biographical studies mount into the thousands. But she is also among general readers of all, with perhaps two others, Frost and Whitman, the most beloved of all American poets. That is why we gather today. We also gather today, thanks to some remarkable people. Let me start with Rob Casper, whom you just met, and Teri Cross Davis who's sitting back there -- Directors of the Poetry Program here at the Library of Congress and at the Folger as you have just heard, respectively. Their expertise, judgment, knowledge, I would say patience, are made all the more terrific because of their love of, and intimate familiarity with American poetry and poets. Thanks to the poets -- I was going to name some of them who are, some of you, but there are too many to name, including people who have come all the way from New York and Massachusetts just for this event. We are able to have this really monumental event in this wonderful place. I want to thank Jane Wald who's coming a little later from Amherst, where there's always something wonderful happening at the museum, the two houses in Amherst, which she directs. And thanks to Eric Frazier and Rosemary Plake [assumed spelling] -- is it Plako [assumed spelling], I think -- for the great gift of time to view some treasures of the Library of Congress connected to the publishing history of Emily Dickinson. That will be in 113 down the hall from 12:00 to 2:00 if you can stay that long. Let me also thank Professors Judith Farr and Nelly Lewis-Lambert who's over here, cohorts in organizing the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the Emily Dickinson Society, and you can sign up for that outside this room -- and the Society's President, Martha Nell Smith, who will be here shortly, a great scholar in this field as you know. On the hall table are notices, or there will be, of the next meeting of the local chapter. Mary Jo Salter will join us in March. There will be particulars for March 12th. What would Dickinson make of these resources, not to mention Ron Charles's, I though delightful article, "Woody," in the ^IT Post ^No on Saturday. "Yes, she claimed to be nobody, but she also foretold the possibility of what might happen if 'fame belonged to me.'" Briefly, here is an outline of her little force. Born to the first family that founded Amherst College and it sent her lawyer father as a Wig to Congress in 1853, Dickinson was well-schooled at the Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke Seminary, where her interest in the sciences and history and much else would provide metaphoric context for poems that she began to write seriously in 1852. Myths and research on the poet's possibly not so quiet private life -- emphasis on possible -- have provided grist for novels, plays, song cycles, often embroidering the simple story. Aside from a visit to her father in Washington in 1855 when she stayed at the Willard Hotel, and months in Cambridge in 1864/'65 when she sought help for eye problems, she lived exclusively in the house on Main Street with her parents and sister, next door, eventually, to her brother Austin and his wife, Susan, Dickinson's closest friend. The bedroom at the top of the stairs, available now to thousands of visitors, was, however, the hub of Dickinson's astonishing production of over 1000 extant letters to an array of correspondents, including some of the most distinguished intellectual leaders of her day, and of the poems on which we focus today for this marathon. For the writer who declined editors' attempts to print, her poems have entered a wide world in dizzying forms, forms that often reflect the struggles in the family and later in critical circles -- the 1890's publications, doctored but labored over by Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the Dickinson Bianchi editions, the authoritative ^IT Johnson Variorum ^NO of 1955 that astonished modernists with Dickinson's idiosyncratic poetics, the ^IT Franklin Variorum ^NO that we're using today that revised Johnson's work in 1998, the important revelation of Dickinson's bookmaking enterprise, her ^IT Fascicles, ^NO Franklin's 1981publication of manuscript poems, and not least, the most recent demonstrations of Dickinson's relentless pursuit of her art in the ^IT Gorgeous Nothings ^NO envelope writings. Within these miraculously recovered poems, Dickinson speaks in multiple ways. She is "epigrammatic, terse, abrupt, surprising, unsettling, flirtatious, savage, winsome, metaphysical, provocative, blasphemous, tragic, funny, and the list of adjectives could be extended." That's Helen Vendler; can't one-up her. It is the privilege of those of us gathered today in America's Library in the center of its capital city to listen to those voices as those who wish to do so line up to read the poems in sequence. That's the secret of the day. We're going to listen to the poems in sequence so we get the full array of poems, and we -- after a particular moment, I think the first people have chosen something. But we're going to begin then when the sequence begins with the 1860 poems, so we can get almost finished with the poems by 5 o'clock, and we'll sort of lead you through it as you come up. These are the most probably sequence in Franklin's scholarly judgment. Of course, we could be out-guessed at any moment. If you stay long enough you will hear the many tones in which she -- the industrious spider spinning at night, the accomplished gardener sending flowers, the antiquarian handing over precious texts, the wrestler with God, the barefoot boy at play, all among her own metaphors for the business of Emily Dickinson -- speaks to us today. ^M00:10:04 So we're going to start now and we're just going to have a day with no discussion beyond -- I was the only one who got to discuss in any way. And it will be frustrating that we can't ask questions, we can't stop and say, "Oh, my goodness. Let's do that one over again." We're just going to read and read and read. And from this moment on, the voice of Emily Dickinson, through those of you in this room, that's the only voice we're going to hear, and won't that be fun? If you didn't get a little button, I have 100. So the first 100 people get one. It's a non-partisan election button on Emily Dickinson. >> Good morning. My name is Rebecca Newland. And, as instructed, I'm going to start at the beginning. All right, Number One. "Awake you muses nine, sing me a strain divine. Unwind the solemn twine and tie my valentine. Oh, the earth was made for lovers, for damsel and hopeless swain, for sighing and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain. All things do go acourting and earth or sea or air. God hath made nothing single but thee in this world so fair. The bride and then the bridegroom, the two and then the one. Adam and Eve his consorts, the moon and then the sun. The life doth prove the percept, who obey shall happy be. Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree. The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small. None cannot find who seeketh on this terrestrial ball. The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives, and they make a merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves, The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won, and the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son. The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune. The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon. Their spirits meet together, they make them solemn vows. No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose. The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride. Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide. Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true, and Earth is quite coquettish, and he seemeth in vain to sue. Now to the application, to the reading of the roll, to bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul. Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone. Wilt have no kind companion, thou reapest what thou hast sown. Hast never silent hours and minutes all too long, and a deal of sad reflection and wailing instead of song? There's Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair, and Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair. Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see six true and comely maidens sitting upon the tree. Approacheth that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb and seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space or time. Then bear her to the greenwood and build for her a bower, and give her what she asketh -- jewel, or bird, or flower. And bring the fife and trumpet, and beat upon the drum. And bid the world good morrow and go to glory home." Number Two. "Sic transit gloria mundi. How doth the busy bee? Dum vivimus vivamus. I stay mine enemy. Oh veni, vidi, vici. Ah caput cap-a-pie. And, oh, memento mori, when I am far from thee. Hurrah for Peter Parley. Hurrah for Daniel Boone. Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman who first observed the moon. Peter, put up the sunshine; Patti, arrange the stars; tell Luna, tea is waiting, and call your brother, Mars. Put down the apple, Adam, and come away with me. So shalt thou have a pippin from off my father's tree? I climb the Hill of Science, I view the landscape o'er. Such transcendental prospect, I never beheld before. Unto the legislature my country bids me go. I'll take my India rubbers in case the wind should blow. During my education, it was announced to me that gravitation, stumbling, fell from an apple tree. The earth upon its axis was once supposed to turn by way of a gymnastic in honor to the sun. It was the brave Columbus, a-sailing o'er the tide, who notified the nations of where I would reside. Mortality is fatal; gentility is fine; rascality, heroic; insolvency, sublime. Our father's being weary, laid down on Bunker Hill, and though full many a morn yet they are sleeping still. The trumpet, sir, shall wake them. In streams I see them rise. Each with a solemn musket, marching to the skies. A coward will remain, sir, until the fighting is done. But an immortal hero will take his hat and run. Good-bye, sir, I am going. My country calleth me. Allow me, sir, at parting, to wipe my weeping e'e. In token of our friendship, accept this Bonnie Doon. And when the hand that plucked it hath passed beyond the moon, the memory of my ashes will consolation be. Then farewell, Tuscarora, and farewell, sir, to thee." And Number three. "On this wondrous sea sailing silently. Ho, pilot, ho. Knowest thou the shore where no breakers roam when the storm is o'er? In the silent west, many the sails at rest. The anchor's fast. Thither I pilot thee. Land, ho, Eternity. Ashore at last." Thank you. ^E00:16:34 ^B00:16:51 >> Hello, everyone. My name is Gerald Shields. We'll start with the 1860 poems. Poem 130. "Mama never forgets her birds, though in another tree. She looks down just as often and just as tenderly as when her little mortal nest with cunning care she wove. If either of her sparrows fall, she notices above." 131. "Tho my destiny may be Fustian, hers be damask fine. Tho she wear a silver apron, I, a less divine. Still, my little [inaudible] being I would far prefer. Still, my little sunburnt blossom to her rosier. For when frosts her punctual fingers on her forehead lay, you and I, and Dr. Holland bloom eternally. Roses of a steadfast summer in a steadfast land where no autumn lifts her pencil and no reapers stand." 132. "Just lost when I was saved. Just felt the world go by. And grit me for the onset with eternity. When breath blew back and on the other side I heard recede the disappointing tide. Therefore, as one returned I feel odd secrets of the line to tell. Some sailor, skirting foreign shores, same pale reporter from the awful doors. Before the seal. Next time to stay, next time the things to see. By ear unheard, unscrutinized by the eye. Next time to tarry while the ages steal. Show tramp the centuries and the cycle wheel." 133. "Mute thy coronation, meek my vive le roi, fold a tiny courtier in thine Emine, sir. There to rest revering 'til the pageant by. I can murmur broken, Master, it was I." 134. Did the harebell loose her girdle to the lover bee? Would the bee the harebell hallow much as formerly? Did the paradise persuaded yield her moat of pearl? Would the Eden be an Eden or the earl an earl?" ^M00:20:01 135. "A little bread, a little crust, a crumb. A little trust, a demijohn, can keep the souls alive. But portly mind, but breathing warm, conscious as a Napoleon. The night before the crown. A modest lot, a fame petite, a brief campaign of sting and sweet is plenty, is enough. A sailor's business is the shore. A soldier's balls. Who asks more? Must seek the neighboring life." 136. "Who never lost are unprepared. A coronet to find. Who never thirsted, flagons and cooling tamarind. Who never climbed the weary league can such a foot explore? Purple territories on Palazzo's shore. 'How many legions overcome,' the emperor will say. How many colors taken on Revolution Day? How many bullets burst? Hath thou the royal scar? Angels write 'Promoted' on the soldier's brow." 137. "A lady red amid the hill, her annual secret keeps. A lady white within the field in placid lily sleeps. The tidy breezes with their brooms sweep vale and hill and tree. Prith my pretty housewives who may expected be? The neighbors did not yet suspect. The woods exchange a smile. Orchard and buttercups and bird, in such a little while. And yet how still the landscape stands, how nonchalant the hedge, as if the resurrection were nothing very strange." 138. "To fight aloud is very brave, well, gallanter, I know. Who charge within the bosom the Cavalry of Woe. Who win and nations do not see, who fall, and none observe. Whose dying eye no country regards with patriot love. We trust in plumed procession such things the angels go. Rank after rank, with even feet and uniforms of snow." 139. "Houses, so the wise men tell me. Mansions, mansions must be warm. Mansions cannot let the tears in. Mansions must exclude the storm. Many mansions by this father. I do not know him, snugly built. Could the children find the way there? Some would even trudge tonight." 140. Bring me the sunset in a cup. Reckon the morning's flagons up. And say how many dew. Tell me how far the morning leaps, tell me what time the weaver sleeps, who spun the breadths of blue. Write me how many notes there be in the new robin's ecstasy among astonished burrows. How many trips the tortoise makes, how many cups the bee partakes, the debauch of dews. Also, who laid the rainbow's piers? Also, who leads the domicile's spheres by withers of supple blue whose fingers string the stalactite. Who counts the wampum of the night to see that none is due? Who built this little Alban house and shut the windows down so close? My spirit cannot see. Who will let me out some gala day with implements to fly away, passing pomposity?" 141. "She died at play. Gambolled away her lease of spotted hours, then sank as gaily as a Turk upon a couch of flowers. Her ghost strolled softly over the hill yesterday and today. Her vestments as the silver fleece, her countenance as spray." 142. "Cocoon above, cocoon below. Stealthy cocoon, why hide you so what all the world suspect? An hour, and gay on every tree your secret, perched in ecstasy defies imprisonment. An hour in chrysalis to pass, then gay above receding grass, a butterfly to go. A moment to interrogate, then wiser than a surrogate, the universe to know." 143. "Exultation is going of an inland soul to sea. Past the houses, past the headlands, in deep eternity. Bred as we, among the mountains. Can the sailor understand the divine intoxication of the first league out from land?" "I never heard the word escape without a quicker blood, a sudden expectation, a flying altitude. I never heard of prisons broad by soldiers battered down. But I tug childish at my bars only to fail again." She said -- oh, all right. 145. Well -- ^M00:26:55 [ Inaudible Speaker ] ^M00:26:58 Then the -- [ Inaudible Speaker ] Okay. 145. "A little East of Jordan evangelists record a gymnast and an angel did wrestle long and hard. 'Til morning touching mountain, and Jacob waxing strong, the angel begged permission to breakfast, to return. 'Not so,' said cunning Jacob. 'I will not let thee go except thou bless me, stranger.' The which acceded to -- Light swung the silver fleeces, 'Peniel' Hills beyond, and the bewildered gymnast found he had worsted God." 146. "All overgrown by cunning moss, all interspaced [sic] with weed, the little cage of 'Currier Bell' in quiet Hawthorn laid. This bird, observing others when frosts too sharp became retire to other latitudes, quietly did the same. But differed in retiring since Yorkshire hills are green. Yet not in all the nest I meet can nightingale be seen." ^E00:28:15 ^B00:28:31 >> 147. "A science, so the savants say." It's the right light. "Comparative anatomy by which a single home is made a secret to unfold of some rare tenant of the mold, else perished in the stone. So to the eve perspective led, that meekest flower of the mead open a winter's day, stands representative as gold. The angels must have spied since I could never find her, open the mortal side." This is 155. "If pain for peace prepares, lo, what Augustan years our feet await. If springs from winter rise, can the anemones be reckoned up? If night stands first, then noon to gird us for the sun, what gaze? When, from a thousand skies, on our developed eyes, noons blaze." ^M00:30:01 156. "Surgeons must be very careful when they take the knife. Underneath their fine incursions stirs the culprit -- Life." 157. I have a king who does not speak. So, wondering through the hours meek I trudge the day away. Half glad when it is night and sleep. If happily through a dream to peep in parlors shut by day. And if I do, when morning comes, it is as if a hundred dreams did round my pillow roll. And shouts fill all my childish sky, and bells keep saying 'victory' from steeples to my soul. And if I don't, the little bird within the orchard is not heard, and I omit to pray. 'Father, they will be done' today.' For my will goes the other way and it were perjury." 158. "Where I have lost, I softer tread. I sow sweet flowers from garden bed. I praise above that vanished head and mourn. When I have lost, I pious guard from accent harsh or ruthless word, feeling as if their pillow heard, though stone. When I have lost, you'll know by this, a bonnet black, a dark surplice, a little tremor in my voice like this. When I have lost, the people know who dressed in frocks of purest snow. Went home a century ago. Next bliss. 159. She went as quiet as the dew from an accustomed flower. Not like the dew did she return at the accustomed hour. She dropped as softly as a star from out of my summer's eve. Less skillful than Leverrier it's sorer to believe." 160. "To hang our head ostensibly and subsequent to find that such was not the posture of our immortal mind, affords the sly presumption that, in so dense a fuzz, you, too, take cobweb attitudes open a plane of gauze." 161. "The daisy follows soft the sun, and when his golden walk is done, sits shyly at his feet. He, waking, finds the flower there. 'Wherefore, marauder, art thou here? 'Because, sir, love is sweet.' We are the flower, thou the sun. Forgive us if as days decline we nearer steal to thee. Enamoured of the parting west, the peace, the flight, the amethyst, night's possibility." 162. "Some rainbow coming from the fair, some vision of the world cashmere, I confidently see. Or else a peacock's purple train, feather by feather, on the plain fritters itself away. The dreamy butterfly bestir, lethargic pools resume the whir or last year's sundered tune. From some old forest on the sun, baronial fees march, one by one, in murmuring platoon. The robins stand as thick today as flakes of snow stood yesterday, on fence and road and twig. The orchis binds her feather on for her old lover, Don the Sun, revisiting the bog. Without commander, countess, still the regiments of wood and hill in bright detachment stand. Behold. Whose multitudes are these? The children of whose turbaned seas, or what Circassian land?" "By a flower" -- Oh, this is 163. "By a flower, by a letter, by a nimble love, if I weld the river faster, final fast, above. Never mind my breathless anvil. Never mind repose. Never mind the sooty faces tugging at the forge." 164. "I can't tell you, but you feel it. Nor can you tell me. Saints with ravished slate and pencil solve our April day. Sweeter than a vanished frolic from a vanished green. Swifter than the boots of horsemen round a ledge of dream. Modest, let us walk amongst it with our faces veiled. As they say polite archangels do in meeting God. Not for me to prate about it. Not for you to say to some fashionable lady, "Charming April Day." Rather, heaven's Peter Parley by which children, slow to sublime a recitation, are prepared to go." ^E00:37:10 ^B00:37:17 >> Thank you. 165. I'm Anne Harding Woodworth. 165. "I have never seen volcanoes, but when travelers tell how those old phlegmatic mountains, usually so still, beat within, appalling ordinance, fire and smoke and gun, taking villages for breakfast, and appalling men. If the stillness is volcanic in the human face, when upon a pain Titanic features keep their place. If at length the smoldering anguish will not overcome, and the palpitating vineyard in the dust be thrown? If some loving antiquary on Resumption Morn will not cry with joy, 'Pompeii,' to the hills return." 166. "Dust is the only secret, death the only one you cannot find out all about in his native town. Nobody knew his father. Never was a boy. Hadn't any playmates or early history. Industrious, laconic, punctual, sedate, bold as a brigand, stiller than a Fleet, builds like a bird, too. Christ robs the nest. Robin after robin smuggled to rest." 167. I'm the little 'Heart's Ease.' I don't care for pouting skies. If the butterfly delay can't I, therefore, stay away? If the coward bumble bee in his chimney corner stay, I must resoluter be. Who will apologize for me? Dear, old-fashioned little flower, Eden is old-fashioned, too. Birds are antiquated fellows. Heaven does not change her blue. Nor will I, the little Heart's Ease, ever be induced to do." 168. "Ah, necromancy sweet. Ah, wizard erudite. Teach me the skill that I instill the pain surgeons assuage in vain, nor herb of all the plain can heal." ^M00:40:02 169. "Wait 'til the majesty of death invests so mean a brow. Almost a powdered footman might dare to touch it now. Wait 'til in everlasting robes this democrat is dressed. Than prate about preferment and station and the rest. 'Round this quiet courtier obsequious angels wait. Full royal is his retinue, full purple is his state. A lord might dare to lift the hat to such a modest clay, since that my lord, 'the Lord of Lords,' receives unblushingly." "Tis so much joy, tis so much joy if I" -- this is 170. "Tis so much joy. Tis so much joy. If I should fail, what poverty. And yet as poor as I have ventured all upon a throw, have gained, yes, hesitated so, this side of victory. Life is but life, and death but death. Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath. And if indeed I fail, at least to know the worst is sweet, defeat means nothing but defeat. No drearier can befall. And if I gain, oh, gun, at sea, oh bells that in the steeples be, at first repeat it's slow. For heaven is a different thing -- conjectured, and waked sudden and might extinguish me." 171. "A fuzzy fellow without feet, yet doth exceeding run. Of velvet, is his countenance, and his complexion, dun. Sometime he dwelleth in the grass. Sometime, upon a bough from which he doth descend in plush upon the passer-by. Oh, all this in summer. But when winds alarm the first folk, he taketh damask residence and struts in sewing silk. Then, finer than a lady, emerges in the spring, a feather on each shoulder. You'd scarce recognize him. By men, yclept caterpillar. By me. But who am I to tell the pretty secret of the butterfly?" 172. "At last to be identified. At last, the lamps upon your side, the rest of life to see. Past midnight, past the morning star, past sunrise. Ah, what leagues there were between our feet and day." 173. "Except to heaven she is nought; except for angels, lone; except to some wide-wandering bee, a flower superfluous blown. Except for winds, provincial; except for butterflies, unnoticed as a single dew that on the acre lies. The smallest housewife in the gras, yet take her from the lawn and somebody has lost the face that made existence home." 174. "Portraits are to daily faces as an evening west to a fine, pedantic sunshine in a satin vest." 175. "I cautious scanned my little life. I winnowed what would fade from what would last 'til heads like mine should be a dreaming laid. I put the ladder in a barn, the former blew away. I went one winter morning and lo, my priceless hay was not upon the scaffold, was not upon the beam, and from a thriving farmer, a cynic I became. Whether a thief did it, whether it was the wind, whether deities guiltless, my business is to find. So I begin to ransack how is it hearts with thee? Art thou within the little barn love provided thee?" 176. "If I could bribe them by a rose I'd bring them every flower that grows from Amherst to Cashmere. I would not stop for night or storm or frost or death or anyone. My business were so dear. If they would linger for a bird, my tambourin would soonest heard among the April woods. Unwearied, all the summer long, only to break in wilder song when winter shook the boughs. What if they hear me? Who shall say that such an importunity may not at last avail? That, weary of this beggar's face, they may not finally say yes, to drive her from the hall?" 177. "As if some little arctic flower upon the polar hem went wandering down the latitudes until it puzzled came to continents of summer, to firmaments of sun, to strange, bright crowds of flower and birds of foreign tongue. I say, as if this little flower to Eden wandered in, what then? Why, nothing, only your inference therefrom." 178. "To learn the transport by the pain as blind men learn the sun; to die of thirst, suspecting that books in meadows run; to stay the homesick, homesick feet upon a foreign shore haunted by native lands, the while, and blue, beloved air. This is the sovereign anguish; this, the signal woe. These are the patient laureates whose voices, trained below, ascend in ceaseless carol, inaudible, indeed, to us, the duller scholars of the mysterious bard." ^E00:46:54 ^B00:47:04 Start right there, 179, and hold it down so you get the light. >> Yeah. ^E00:47:09 ^B00:47:16 I'm Fred Woodworth. This is 179. "If the foolish call them flowers, need the wiser tell? If the savants classify them, it is just as well. Those who read the ^IT Revelations ^NO must not criticize those who read the same edition with beclouded eyes. Could we stand with the old Moses, Canaan denied? Scan, like him, the stately landscape on the other side? Doubtless we should dream superfluous many sciences not pursued by learned angels in scholastic skies. Low, amid that glad belle lettres grant that we may stand, stars, amid profound galaxies, as that grand right hand." Number 180. "In Ebon Box, when years have flown to reverently peer, wiping away the velvet dust summers have sprinkled there. To hold a letter to the light, grown tawny now with time, to con the faded syllables that quickened us like wine. Perhaps a flower's shriveled cheek among its stores to find, plucked far away, some morning, its gallant mouldering hand. A curl, perhaps from foreheads our constancy forgot, perhaps an antique trinket in vanished fashion set. And then to lay them quiet back and go about its care as if the little Ebon Box were none of our affair." 181. "A wounded deer leaps highest I've heard the hunter tell. 'Tis but the ecstasy of death and thus the brake is still. The smitten rock that gushes, the trampled steel that springs, a cheek is always redder just where the hectic stings. Mirth is the mail of anguish in which it cautious arm lest anybody spy the blood and, 'you're hurt' exclaim." ^M00:50:00 182. "The sun kept stooping, stooping low. The hills to meet him rose. On his side, what transaction. On their side, what repose. Deeper and deeper grew the stain open the window pane. Thick and thicker stood the feet upon the Tyrian. Was crowded dense with armies so gay, so brigadier, that I felt martial stirrings who once the Cockade wore. Charged from my chimney corner, but nobody was there." 183. "I met a king this afternoon. He had not on a crown indeed. A little palm leaf hat was all, and he was barefoot, I'm afraid. But sure I am he ermine wore beneath his faded jacket's blue. And sure I am the crest he bore within that jacket's pocket, too. For 'twas too stately for an Earl. A Marquis would not so grand. 'Twas possibly a Czar petite, a Pope, or something of that kind. If I must tell you of a horse, my freckled monarch held the rein. Doubtless an estimable beast but not at all disposed to run. And such a wagon. While I live dare I promise to see another such a vehicle as then transported me. Two other ragged princes, his royal state partook. Doubtless the first excursion these sovereigns ever took. I question if the royal coach round which the footmen wait has the significance on high of this barefoot estate." >> Thanks. The next reader will be Jennifer Atkinson. ^E00:52:24 ^B00:52:39 >> 186. I think that's where we were. "The juggler's hat her country is. The mountain gorse, the bee's." 187. "Through the straight pass of suffering, the martyrs even trod. Their feet upon temptation, their faces upon God. A stately, shriven company, convulsion playing round, harmless as streaks of meteor upon a planet's bound. Their faith the everlasting troth; their expectation fair. The needle to the north degree wades so, through polar air." 188. "Could I then shut the door, lest my beseeching face, at last, rejected, be of her?" 189. "Is it true, dear Sue? Are there two? I shouldn't like to come for fear of joggling him. If you could shut him up in a coffee cup, or tie him to a pin 'til I got in, or make him fast to Toby's fist -- hist, whist, I'd come." 190. "No rose yet felt myself abloom. No bird yet rode in ether." 191. "Morning means milking to the farmer, dawn to the Tenerife, dice to the maid. Morning means just risk to the lover, just revelation to the beloved. Epicures date a breakfast by it; brides, an apocalypse. Worlds, a flood. Faint-going lives their lapse from sighing; faith, the experiment of our Lord." 192. "'Tis anguish grander than delight, tis resurrection pain, the meeting bands of smitten face we questioned to, again. 'Tis transport wild as thrills the graves when Cerements let go, and creatures glad in miracle go up by two and two." 193. "Speech is a prank of Parliament; tears, a trick of the nerve. But the heart with the heaviest freight on doesn't always move." 194. "Title divine is mine. The wife without the sign. Acute degree conferred on me -- Empress of Calvary. Royal all but the crown, betrothed, without the swoon. God gives us women when you hold garnet to garnet, gold to gold. Born, bridalled, shrouded in a day. Tri-Victory. My husband, women say, stroking the melody is the way." ^E00:56:35 ^B00:56:43 [ Inaudible Speaker ] Oh. ^E00:56:44 ^B00:56:53 Okay. 194. Thank you. >> Karen Allenyear. 194. "Title divine is mine. The wife without the sign. Acute degree conferred on me -- Empress of Calvary. Royal all but crowned, betrothed without the swoon. God gives us women when you hold garnet to garnet, gold to gold. Born, bridalled, shrouded in a day. 'Tis victory -- try victory. 'My husband,' women say stroking the melody, 'is this way.'" 195. "Victory comes late and is held low to freezing lips, woo rapt with frost to take it. How sweet it would have tasted just a drop. Was God so economical? His table's spread too high for us unless we dine on tip-toe. Crumbs fit such little mouths, cherries suit robins; the eagle's golden breakfast strangles them. God kept his oath to sparrows. Who of little love know how to starve?" 196. "I'll send the feather from my hat. Who knows, but at the sight of that, my sovereign will relent. As trinket, worn by faded child, confronting eyes long-comforted, blisters the adamant." 197. "Jesus, thy crucifix enable thee to guess the smallest size. Jesus, thy second face mind there in paradise of ours." 198. "Baby, teach him what he makes the names, such an one to say on his babblings, berry lips as should sound to me were my eat as near his nest as though my thought today, as should sound. ^M01:00:17 Forbid us not. Some like Emily." 199. "Though I get home, how late? How late? So I get home, 'twill compensate. Better will be the ecstasy that they have done expecting me. When night descending, dumb and dark, they hear my unexpected knock. Transporting must the moment be, brewed from decades of agony. To think just how the fire will burn, just how long-cheated eyes will turn to wonder what myself will say, and what itself will say to me, beguiles the centuries of way." 200. "The rose did caper on her cheek, her bodice rose and fell, her pretty speech, like drunken men, did stagger pitiful. Her fingers fumbled at her work. Her needle would not go. What ailed so smart a little maid, it puzzled me to know. 'Til opposite I spied a cheek that bore another rose; just opposite, another speech that like the drunkard goes. A vest that like her bodice danced to the immortal tune, 'til those two troubled little clocks ticked softly into one." ^E01:02:26 ^B01:02:33 >> Thank you. "With thee in the desert, with thee in the thirst, with thee in the Tamarind wood, leopard breathes, at last." 202. "Faith is a fine invention for gentlemen who see. But microscopes are prudent in an emergency." 203. "The thought beneath so slight a film is more distinctly seen as lace just reveal the surge or mists the Apennine." 204. "I'll tell you how the sun rose -- a ribbon at a time. The steeples swam in amethyst, the news like squirrels ran. The hills untied their bonnets, the bobolinks begun. Then I said softly to myself, 'That must have been the sun.' But how he set, I know not. There seemed a purple stile that little yellow boys and girls were climbing all the while. 'Til when they reached the other side, the dominie in gray put gently upon the evening bars, and led the flock away." 205. "Come slowly, Eden. Lips unused to thee. Bashful, sip they Jessamines, as the fainting bee reaching late his flowers, round her chamber hums, counts his nectars, enters, and is lost in Balms." 206. "Least rivers -- docile to some sea. My Caspian -- thee." 207. "I taste the liquor never brewed from tankards scooped in pearls. Not all the Frankfort berries yield such an alcohol. Inebriated of air am I and debauchee of dew, reeling though endless summer days from inns of molten blue. When landlords turn the drunken bee out of the foxglove door, when butterflies renounce their drams, I shall but drink the more. 'Til seraphs swing their snowy hats and saints to windows run to see the little tippler leaning against the sun." 208, Pine Boughs. "A feather from the Whippoorwill that everlasting sings, whose galleries are sunrise, whose stanzas are the springs, whose emerald nest, the ages spin, with mellow murmur thread, whose beryl egg, what schoolboys hunt, in recess overhead." 209. "I lost a world the other day. Has anybody found? You'll know it by the row of stars around its forehead bound. A rich man might not notice it, and yet to my frugal eye of more esteem than ducats. Oh, find it, sir, for me." ^E01:06:51 ^B01:07:03 210. >> Hello, I'm Allan Able. 210. "If I shouldn't be alive when the robins come, give the one in red cravat a memorial crumb. If I couldn't thank you being fast asleep, you will know I'm trying with my granite lip." 211. "I've heard an organ talk sometimes in a cathedral aisle, and understood no word it said, yet held my breath the while. And risen up, and gone away, a more Berdardine girl. Yet knew not what was done to me in that old chapel aisle." 212. "A transport one cannot contain may yet a transport be, though God forbid it lift the lid unto its ecstasy. A diagram of rapture, a sixpence at a show, with holy ghosts in cages, the universe would go." 213. "The skies can't keep their secret. They tell it to the hills. The hills just tell the orchids and they the daffodils. A bird by chance that goes that way soft overhears the whole. If I should bribe the little bird, who knows but she would tell? I think I won't, however. It's finer not to know. If summer were an axiom, what sorcery had snow? So keep your secret, father. I would not if I could know what the sapphire fellows do in your new-fashioned world." 214. "Poor little heart. Did they forget thee? Then dinna care, dinna care. Proud little heart, did they forsake thee? Be debonair, be debonair. Frail little heart, I would not break thee. Could'st credit me? Could'st credit me? Gay little heart, like morning glory, wind and sun wil't thee array." 215. "I shall know why when time is over and I have ceased to wonder why. Christ will explain each separate anguish in the fair schoolroom of the sky. He will tell me what Peter promised, and I for wonder at his woe, I shall forget the drop of anguish that scalds me now, that scalds me now." 216. "On this long storm the rainbow rose. On this late morn, the sun. The clouds, like listless elephants, horizons straggled down. The birds rose smiling in their nests. The gales, indeed, were done. Alas. How heedless were the eyes on whom the summer shone. The quiet nonchalance of death no daybreak can bestir. ^M01:10:00 The slow archangel's syllables must awaken her." 217. "The bumble of a bee a witchcraft yieldeth me. If any ask me 'why' -- 'twere easier to die than tell. The red upon the hill taketh away my will. If anybody sneer, take care, for God is near. That's all. The breaking of the day addeth to my degree. If any ask me 'how,' artists who drew me so, must tell." 218. "You love me, you are sure. I shall not fear a mistake. I shall not cheated wake some grinning morn to find the sunrise left and orchards, unbereft, and Dollie gone. I need not start, you're sure. That night will never be when frightened home to thee I run, to find the windows dark and no more Dollie, mark -- quite none? Be sure you're sure, you know. I'll bear it better now if you'll just tell me so than when a little dull balm grows over this pain of mine. You sting, again." 219. "My river runs to thee. Blue sea, wilt welcome me? My river waits reply. Oh, sea, look graciously. I'll fetch thee brooks from spotted nooks. Say, sea, take me?" 220. "It's such a little thing to weep, so short a thing to sigh; and yet by trades the size of these we men and women die." ^M01:11:39 [ Inaudible Speaker ] ^M01:11:46 One more? 221. "He was weak and I was strong -- then. So he let me lead him in. I was weak and he was strong then. So I let him lead me home. 'Twasn't far. The door was near. 'Twasn't dark, for he went, too. 'Twasn't loud, for he said nought. That was all I cared to know. Day knocked, and we must part. Neither was strongest now. He strove and I strove, too. We didn't do it, though." ^E01:12:24 ^B01:12:33 222 is up. >> Okay, thank you. Is Edith Sambria [assumed spelling] here? Okay. As she is not here, we will have Eleanor Linafelt [assumed spelling]. >> Okay. So, 221. >> Okay. All right. I've got 221. "He was weak and I was strong, then. So he let me lead him in. I was weak, and he was strong then. So I let him lead me home. 'Twasn't far. The door was near. 'Twasn't dark, for he went, too. 'Twasn't loud, for he said nought. That was all I cared to know. Day knocked, and we must part. Neither was strongest now. He strove and I strove, too. We didn't do it, though." 222. "Dying, dying in the night. Won't somebody bring the light so I can see which way to go into the everlasting snow? And, Jesus, where is Jesus now? Gone. They said that Jesus always came. Perhaps he doesn't know the house. This way, Jesus. Let him pass. Somebody run to the great gate and see if Dollie's coming. Wait. I hear her feet open the stair. Death won't hurt now Dollie's here." 223. "Morning is the place for dew. Corn is made at noon. After dinner light for flowers. Dukes for setting sun." 224. "An awful tempest mashed the air, the clouds were gaunt and few. A black, as if a spectre's cloak hid heaven and earth from view. The creatures chuckled on the roofs and whistled in the air, and shook their fists and gnashed their teeth, and swung their frenzied hair. The morning lit, the birds arose. The monster's faded eyes turned slowly to his native coast, and peace was paradise." 225. "I'm wife. I've finished that. That other state. I'm czar, I'm woman now. It's safer so. How odd the girls' life looks behind this soft eclipse. I think that earth feels so to folks in heaven, now. This being comfort then, that other kind was pain. But why compare? I'm wife. Stop there." 226. " I stole them from a bee because thee, sweet plea. He pardoned me." 227. "Two swimmers wrestled on the spar until the morning sun. When one turned smiling to the land. Oh, God, the other one. The stray ships passing spied a face upon the waters borne, with eyes in death still begging raised, and heads beseeching thrown." 228. My eye is fuller than my vase. Her cargo is of dew. And still my heart, my eye outweighs. East India for you." 229. "Musicians wrestle everywhere, all day among the crowded air. I hear the silver strife. And waking long before the morn such transport breaks upon the town, and I think it that new life. It is not bird; it has no nest nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed. Nor tambourine, nor man. It is not hymn from pulpit read. The morning stars the treble led on time's first afternoon. Some say it is the spheres at play. Some say that bright majority of vanished dames and men. Some think it is service in the place where we, with late, celestial face, please God, shall ascertain." 230. "For this accepted breath, through it compete with death. The fellow cannot touch this crown. By it my title take. Ah, what a royal sake to my necessity-stooped down. No wilderness can be where this attendeth me. No desert noon, no fear of frost to come. Haunt the perennial bloom. But certain June. Get Gabriel to tell the royal syllable. Get saints with new unsteady tongue to say what trance below. Most like their glory show. Fittest the crown." ^E01:16:56 ^B01:17:04 >> All right. >> And Cornelia Wife? Can you tell where we are? >> 231. >> Okay. There we are. >> 231. "We don't cry, Tim and I. We are far too grand. But we bolt the door tight to prevent a friend. Then we hide our brave face deep in our hand. Not to cry, Tim and I. We are far too grand. Not to dream, he and I. He and me? Do we condescend. We just shut our brown eye to see the end. Tim, see cottages. But, oh, so high. Then we shake, Tim and I, and lest I cry. Tim reads a little hymn. And we both pray. Please, sir, I and Tim, always lost the way. We must die by and by, clergy men say. Tim shall -- if I -- do. I -- too -- if he -- How shall we arrange it? Tim was so shy. To take us simultaneously, Lord, I -- Tim -- and me." 232. "He forgot and I remembered. 'Twas an everyday affair long ago as Christ and Peter warmed them at the temple fire. 'Thou were't with him,' quoth the damsel. 'No,' said Peter. 'Twasn't me.' Jesus merely looked at Peter. Could I do aught less to thee?' 233. "A slash of blue. A sweep of gray. Some scarlet patches on the way. Compose an evening sky. A little purple slipped between. Some ruby trousers hurried on. A wave of gold, a bank of day. This just makes out the morning sky." 234. "I should not dare to leave my friend because, because if he should die while I was gone, and I, too late, should reach the heart that wanted me. If I should disappoint the eyes that hunted, hunted so, to see, and could not bear to shut until they noticed me, they noticed me. If I should stab the patient faith so sure I'd come, so sure I'd come. It's listening, listening, went to sleep, telling my tardy name. My heart would wish it broke before. Since breaking then, since breaking then, were useless as next morning's sun. Where at midnight frosts had lain." ^M01:20:06 235. "The flower must not blame the bee that seeketh his felicity too often at her door. But teach the footman from Vevay, mistress is not home to say to people anymore." 236. "Some keep the Sabbath going to church. I keep it staying at home. With a bobolink for a chorister and an orchard for a dome. Some keep the Sabbath in a surplice. I just wear my wings. And instead of tolling the bell for church, our little sexton signs. God preaches, a noted clergyman, and the sermon is never long. So instead of getting to heaven at last, I'm going all along." 237. "What shall I do? It whimpers so. This little hound within the heart, all day and night with bark and start. And yet, it will not go. Would you untie it, were you me? Would it stop whining if to thee I sent it, even now? It should not tease you by your chair or on the mat, for if it dare, to climb your dizzy knee, or sometimes, at your side to run when you were willing, may it come. Tell Carlo. He'll tell me." 238. "How many times these low feet staggered, only the soldered moth cal tell. Try. Can you stir the awful rivet? Try. Can you lift the hasps of steel? Stroke the cool forehead, hot so often. Lift, if you care, the listless hair. Handle the adamantine fingers. Never a thimble, more, shall wear. Buzz the dull flies on the chamber window. Brave shines the sun through the freckled pane. Fearless, the cobweb swings from the ceiling. Indolent housewife, in daisies lain." 239. >> Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Perfect. And Jean Lowe? Here you are. 239. >> Okay. 239. "Make me a picture of the sun so I can hang it on my room. And make believe I'm getting warm when others call it day. Draw me a robin on a stem so I am hearing him. I'll dream. And when the orchid stops their tune, put my pretense away. Say if it's really warm at noon, whether its buttercups that skim or butterlies that bloom? Then skip the frost upon the lea and skip the russet on the tree. Let's play those -- never come." 240. "Bound a trouble and lives will bear it. Circumscription enables woe. Still to anticipate -- were no limit. Who were sufficient to misery? State it the ages to a cipher and it will ache contented on. Sing at its pain as any workman notching the fall of the even sun." 241. "What is paradise? Who live there? Are they farmers? Do they hoe? Do they know that this is Amherst and that I am coming, too? Do they wear new shoes in Eden? Is it always pleasure there? Won't they scold us when we're hungry or tell God how cross we are?" You are sure there's such a person as a father in the sky. So if I get lost there ever, or do what the nurse calls die -- I sham walk the Jasper barefoot. Ransomed folks won't laugh at me. Maybe Eden ain't so lonesome as New England used to be." 242. "It is easy to work when the soul is at play. Best when the soul is in pain. The hearing him put his playthings up makes work difficult then. It is simple to ache in the bone or the rind. But gimlets, among the nerve, mangle dantier, terribler, like a panther in the glove." 243. "That after horror that was so, that passed the mouldering pier just as the granite crumb let go, our savior, by a hair. A second more had dropped too deep for fishermen to plumb. The very profile of the thought puts recollection numb. The possibility to pass without a moment's bell into conjecture's presence is like a face of steel that suddenly knocks into ours with a metallic grin. The cordiality of death who drills his welcome in." 244. "We, bee and I, live by the quaffing. Tisn't all hock with us. Life has its ale. But it's many a lay of the dim Burgandy. We chant, for cheer, when the wines fail. Do we get drunk? Ask the jolly clovers. Do we beat our wife? I never wed. Bee pledges his to minute flagons, dainty as the trees on her deft head. While runs the Rhine, he and I revel. First, at the vat, and latest at the vine. Noon, our last cup, found dead of nectar by a humming coroner in a by-thyme." 245. "God permits industrious angels afternoons to play. I met one, forgot my schoolmates, all for him straightway. God calls home the angels promptly at the setting sun. I missed mine. How dreary -- marbles -- after playing crown. " 246. "The sun just touched the morning. The morning, happy thing. Happened that he had come to dwell and life would all be spring. She felt herself supreme -- a raised ethereal thing. Henceforth, for her, what holiday. Meanwhile her reeling king trailed slow among the orchids, his haughty stumbled hems leaving a new necessity, the want of diadems. The morning fluttered, staggered, felt feebly by her crown. Her unanointed forehead henceforth her only one." 247. "The lamp burned sure within. The serfs supply the oil. It matters not the busy wick at her phosphoric toil. The slave forgets to fill -- the lamp burns golden on, unconscious that the oil is out as that the silver is gone." 248. "One life of so much consequence. Yet I for it would pay my soul's entire income in ceaseless salary. One pearl to me, so signal that I would instant dive. Although I knew to take it would cost me just a life. The sea is full, I know it. That does not blow my gem. It burns, distinct from all the row, intact, in diadem. The life is thick -- I know it. Yet not so dense a crowd, but monarchs are perceptible far down the distant road." ^M01:30:06 249. " You're right. The way is sorrow. Had difficult the gate. And few there be correct again, that enter in there-at. 'Tis costly. So are purples. 'Tis just the price of breath. With but the discount of the grave termed by the brokers, death. And after that there's heaven, the good man's dividend. The bad men go to jail I guess." 250. Okay. ^E01:30:48 ^B01:31:16 >> 250. The court is far away. No umpire have I. My sovereign is offended . To gain his grace, I'd die. I'll seek his royal feet. I'll say, 'Remember King, thou shalt thyself one day a child implore a larger thing.' That empire is of czars as small they say as I. Grant me that day the royalty to intercede for thee. If he dissolve then there is nothing more. Eclipse at midnight, it was dark before. Sunset at Easter, blindness on the dawn. Faint star of Bethlehem gone down. Would but some god inform him or it be too late. Say that the pulse just lisp the chariot's weight. Say that a life for his is leaking red, his little spaniel tell him. Will he heed? I think just how my shape will rise when I shall be forgiven. 'Til hair and eyes and timid head are out of sight in heaven. I think just how my lips will weigh with shapeless, quivering prayer. That you, so late, consider me the sparrow of your care. I mind me that of anguish sent, some drifts were moved away before my simple bosom broke. And why not this if they? And so, I con that thing forgiven until delirious borne by my long bright and longer trust I drop my heart unshriven." 253. "I've nothing else to bring you, you know. So I keep bringing these. Just as the night keeps fetching stars to our familiar eyes. Maybe we shouldn't mind them unless they didn't come. Then maybe it would puzzle us to find our way home." 254. "A mien to move a queen, half child, half heroine. An Orleans in the eye that puts its manner by for humbler company when none are near. Even a tear, its frequent visitor. A bonnet like a duke. And yet a wren's peruke. Why not so shy of goer by and hands so slight they would elate a sprite with merriment. A voice that alters low and on the ear can go like let of snow or shift supreme as tone of ram on subjects diadem. Too small to fear, too distant to endear, and so men compromise and just revere." 255. "The drop that wrestles in the sea forgets her own locality as I in thee. She know herself an incense small. Yet small she sighs if all is all, how larger be? The ocean smiles at her conceit. But she, forgetting Amphitrite, pleads me?" 256. "The robin's my criterion for time because I grow where robins do. But were I cuckoo born I'd swear by him. The old familiar rules the noon. The buttercup's my whim for bloom because we're orchid sprung. But were I Britain born, I'd daisies spurn. None but the nut, October fit because through dropping it the seasons flit. I'm taught without the snow's tableau. Winter, were lie to me because I see, New Englandly, the queen discerns like me, provincially." 257. "I've known a heaven, like a tent, to wrap its shining yards, pluck up its stakes and disappear without the sound of boards or rip of nail or carpenter. But just the miles of stare that signalize a show's retreat in North America. No trace, no figment of the thing that dazzled yesterday. No ring, no marvel. Men and feats dissolved as utterly as bird's far navigation discloses just a hue, a plash of oats, a gaiety, then swallowed up for view." ^E01:37:02 ^B01:37:15 >> Katherine Young. 258. "I came to buy a smile today, but just a single smile. The smallest one upon your face will suit me just as well, the one that no one else would miss. It shone so very small. I'm pleading at the counter, sir. Could you afford to sell? I've diamonds on my fingers. You know what diamonds are. I've rubies, like the evening blood, and topaz, like the star. 'Twould be a bargain for a Jew. Say, may I have it, sir?" 259. "A clock stopped -- not the mantel's. Geneva's farthest skill can't put the puppet bowing, that just now dangled still. An awe came on the trinket, the figures hunched with pain. Then quivered out of decimals into degreeless noon. It will not stir for doctors, this pendulum of snow. The shopman importunes it while cool, concernless no nods from the gilded pointers, nods from the seconds slim. Decades of arrogance between the dial life and him." 260. "I'm nobody. Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us. Don't tell. They'd advertise, you know. How dreary to be somebody. How public, like a frog to tell one's name the livelong June to an admiring bog." 261. "I held a jewel in my fingers and went to sleep. The day was warm and winds were prosy. I said, ''Twill keep. I woke and chid my honest fingers. The gem was gone. And now an amethyst remembrance is all I own." 262. "Ah, moon and star. You are very far. But were no one farther than you, do you think I'd stop for a firmament or a cubit or so? ^M01:40:01 I could borrow a bonnet of the lark, and a chamois' silver boot, and a stirrup of an antelope, and leap to you tonight. But moon and star, though you've very far, there is one farther than you. He is more than a firmament from me, and I cannot go." 263. "Just so, Christ raps. He doesn't weary. First at the knocker and then at the bell, then on divinest tiptoe standing, might He but spy the hiding soul. When He retires, chilled or weary, it will be ample time for me. Patient upon the steps until then. Heart, I am knocking low at thee." 264. "Forever at His side to walk, the smaller of the two. Brain of His brain, blood of His blood, two lives, one being, now. Forever of His fate to taste, if grief, the largest part. If joy, to put my piece away for that beloved heart. All life to know each other, whom we can never learn, and bye and bye, a change called heaven. Rapt neighborhoods of men just finding out what puzzled us without the lexicon." 265. "It can't be summer that got through. It's early yet for spring. There's that long town of white to cross before the blackbirds sing. It can' be dying, it's too rouge. The dead shall go in white. So sunset shuts my question down with cuffs of chrysolite." 266. "What would I give to see his face? I'd give, I'd give my life, of course. But that is not enough. Stop just a minute. Let me think. I'd give my biggest bobolink. That makes two -- him and life. You know who June is. I'd give her roses a day from Zanzibar and lily tubes like wells, bees by the furlong, straits of blue, navies of butterflies sailed through, and dappled cowslip dells. Then I have shares in primrose banks, daffodil dowries, spicy stocks, dominions broad as dew, bags of doubloons, adventurous bees brought me from firmamental seas, and purple from Peru. Now have I bought it, Shylock? Say, sign me the bond. I vow to pay to her who pledges this one hour of her sovereign's face. Ecstatic contract, niggard grace, my kingdom's worth of bliss." 267. "Rearrange a wife's affection where they dislocate my brain. Amputate my freckled bosom. Make me bearded like a man. Blush, my spirit, in thy fastness. Blush, my unacknowledged clay. Seven years of troth have taught thee more than wifehood ever may. Love that's never leaped its socket, trust entrenched in narrow pain, constancy through fire awarded, anguish bare of anodyne. Burden borne so far triumphant, none suspect me of the crown. For I wear the thorns 'til sunset. Then my diadem put on. Big my secret but it's bandaged. It will never get away 'til the day its weary keeper leads it through the grave to thee." 268. "Why do they shut me out of heaven? Did I sing too loud? But, I can say a little minor, timid as a bird. Wouldn't the angels try me, just once more, just see if I trouble them. But don't shut the door. Oh, if I were the gentleman in the white robe, and they were the little hand that knocked, could I forbid?" 269. "Wild nights, wild nights. Were I with thee wild nights should be our luxury. Futile the winds to a heart in port. Done with the compass, done with the chart. Rowing in Eden -- ah, the sea. Might I but more tonight in thee." 270. "I shall keep singing. Birds will pass me on their way to yellower climes, each with a robin's expectation. I, with my redbreast and my rhymes. Late, when I take my place in summer. But I shall bring a fuller tune. Vespers are sweeter than matins, Signor. Morning, only the seed of noon." Thanks. >> What [inaudible]? >> Oh, [inaudible]. 271's where you start. >> Thank you. >> Mm-hmm. >> Kim Roberts. 271. "Over the fence strawberries grow. Over the fence I could climb if I tried, I know. Berries are nice. But if I stained my apron, God would certainly scold. Oh, dear. I guess if He were a boy, He'd climb if He could." Now we're starting on the poems of 1862. 272. "Would you like summer? Taste of ours. Spices? Buy here. Ill. We have berries for the parching. Weary. Furloughs of down. Perplexed. Estates of violet. Trouble ne'er looked on. Captive. We bring reprieve of roses. Fainting. Flasks of air. Even for death, a fairy medicine. But, which is it, sir?" 273 "Perhaps you think me stooping. I'm not ashamed of that. Christ stooped when He touched the grave. Do those at sacrament commemorate dishonor or love annealed of love until it bend as low as death redignified above?" 274. "Again, his voice is at the door. I feel the old degree. I hear him ask the servant for such an one as me. I take a flower as I go. My face to justify. He never saw me in this life. I might surprise his eye. I cross the hall with mingled steps. I, silent, pass the door. I look on all this world contains. Just his face, nothing more. We talk in careless and in toss. A kind of plummet strain. Each sounding shyly. Just how deep the other ones had been. We walk. I leave my dog at home. A tender, thoughtful moon goes with us just a little way. And then we are alone. Alone. If angels are alone. First time they try the sky alone. If those veiled faces be, we cannot count on high. ^M01:50:03 I'd give to live that hour again the purple in my vein. But He must count the drops himself. My price for every stain." 275. "Should you but fail at sea, in sight of me. Or doomed lie next sun to die. Or rap at paradise unheard. I'd harass God until He let you in." 276. "Civilization spurns the leopard. Was the leopard bold? Deserts never rebuked her satin; Ethiop, her gold; tawny, her customs. She was conscious. Spotted, her dun gown. This was the leopard's nature, Signor. Need a keeper frown? Pity the Pard that left her Asia. Memories of palm cannot be stilled with narcotic, nor suppressed with balm." 277. "Going to him. Happy letter. Tell him, tell him the page I didn't write. Tell him I only said the syntax and left the verb and the pronoun out. Tell him just how the fingers hurried. Then, how they waded, slow, slow. And then you wished you had eyes in your pages so you could see what moved them so. Tell him it wasn't a practiced writer. You guess, from the way the sentenced toiled. You could hear the bodice tug behind you. And if it held but the might of a child, you almost pitied it, you. It worked so. Tell him, no. You may quibble here. For it would split his heart to know it. Then you and I were silenter. Tell him, night finished before we finished. And the old clock kept neighing, 'Day.' And you got sleepy and begged to be ended. What would it hinder so to say? Tell him just how she sealed you -- cautious. But if he ask where you are hid until tomorrow, happy letter. Gesture coquette and shake your head." 278. "A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day." Okay. >> And 279? You've got 279 here. Thank you. >> Gina Sangster. 279. "Of all the souls that stand create, I have elected one. When sense from spirit files away and subterfuge is done, when that which is and that which was, apart, intrinsic, stand, and this brief drama in the flesh is shifted like a sand, when figures show their royal front and mists are carved away, behold the atom I preferred to all the lists of clay." 280. "The world stands solemner to me since I was wed to him. A modesty befits the soul that bears another's name. A doubt, if it be fair indeed, to wear that perfect pearl. The man upon the woman binds. To clasp her soul for all. A prayer, that it more angle prove -- a whiter gift within. To that munificence that chose so unadorned a queen. A gratitude that such be true it had esteemed the dream. Too beautiful for shape to prove or posture to redeem." 281. "Me, change? Me, alter? Then I will when on the everlasting hill a small purple grows at sunset. Or a lesser glow flickers upon cordillera at day's superior close." 282. "We play at paste 'til qualified for pearl. Then drop the paste and deem ourself a fool. The shapes, though, were similar and our new hands learned gem tactics practicing sands." 283. "I should have been too glad, I see, too lifted, for the scant degree of life's penurious round. My little circuit would have shamed this new circumference, have blamed the homelier time behind. I should have been too saved, I see, too rescued, fear too dim to me that I could spell the prayer I knew so perfect yesterday. That scalding one, sabachthani, recited fluent here. Earth would have been too much, I see, and heaven not enough for me. I should have had the joy without the fear, to justify the palm without the cavalry. So savior, crucify. Defeat whets victory, they say. The reefs in old Gethsemane endear the coast beyond. 'Tis beggars, banquets best define. 'Tis thirsting vitalizes wine. Faith bleats to understand." ^E01:57:23 ^B01:57:36 >> Dan Vetta [assumed spelling]. 284. "The zeroes taught us phosphorous. We learned to like the fire by handling glaciers when a boy and tinder guessed by power of opposite, to equal ought. Eclipses, suns imply paralysis. Our primer dumb unto vitality." 285. "The love a life can show below is but a filament I know, of that diviner thing that faints upon the face of noon, and smites the tinder in the sun, and hinders Gabriel's wing. 'Tis this, in music, hints and sways, and far abroad on summer days distills uncertain pain. 'Tis this enamors in the east and tints the transit in the west with harrowing iodine. 'Tis this invites, appalls, endows, flits, glimmers, proves, dissolves, returns, suggests, convicts, enchants. Then flings in paradise." 286. "Dropped into the Ether Acre, wearing the sod gown, bonnet of everlasting laces, brooch frozen on. Horses of blond and coach of silver, baggage a strapped pearl. Journey of down and whip of diamond, riding to meet the earl." 287. "While it is alive until death touches it. While it and I lap one air, dwell in one blood, under one sacrament. Show me division can split or pare. Love is like life, merely longer. Love is like death, during the grave. Love is the fellow of the resurrection scooping up the dust and chanting, 'Live.'" 288. "My first well day since many ill, I asked to go abroad and take the sunshine in my hands and see the things in pod. A'blossom just -- when I went in to take my chance with pain uncertain if myself or he should prove the strongest one. ^M02:00:05 The summer deepened while we strove. She put some flowers away and redder checked ones in their stead. A fond, illusive way to cheat herself, it seemed she tried. As if before a child to fade, tomorrow, rainbows held the sepulcher, could hide. She dealt a fashion to the nut. She tied the hoods to seeds. She dropped bright scraps of tint about, and left Brazilian threads. On every shoulder that she met, then both her hands of haze put up to hide her parting grace from our unfitted eyes. My loss, by sickness -- was it loss? Or that ethereal gain one earns by measuring the grave, then measuring the sun." 289. "A burdock twitched my gown. Not Burdock's blame, but mine who went too near the Burdock's den. A bog affronts my shoe. What else have bogs to do? The only trade they know. The splashing men. 'Tis minnows should despise an elephant's calm eyes. Look further on." 290. Let others show the surrey's grace. Myself assist his cross." ^E02:01:37 ^B02:01:57 >> Victor Cancino [assumed spelling]. Number 291. "It sifts from leaden sieves, it powders all the wood, it fills with alabaster wool the wrinkles of the road. It scatters like the birds, condenses like a flock, like jugglers' figures situates upon a baseless arc. It traverses yet halts, disperses as it stays, then curls itself in Capricorn, denying that it was." 292. "I got so I could take his name without tremendous gain. That stop sensation on my soul and thunder in the room. I got so I could walk across that angle in the floor, where he turned so and I turned how, and all our sinew tore. I got so I could stir the box in which his letters grew without that forcing in my breath, as staples driven through. Could dimly recollect a grace. I think they called it 'God.' Renowned to ease extremity when formula had failed. And shape my hands petentions [sic] way, though ignorant of the word that ordination utters. My business with the cloud, if any power behind it be, not subject to despair. It care, in some remoter way. For so minute affair as misery, itself too vast for interrupting more." 293. "A single screw of flesh is all that pins the soul, that stands for deity, to mine, upon my side the veil. Once witnessed of the gauze, it's name is put away. As far from mine as if no plight had printed yesterday. In tender, solemn alphabet, my eyes just turned to see when it was smuggled by my sight into eternity. More hands to hold. These are but two. One more new-mailed nerve just granted for the peril's sake. Some striding, giant, love. So greater than the gods can show, they slink before the clay. That not for all their heaven can boast, will let its keepsake go." 294. "A weight with needles on the pounds -- to push and pierce besides. That if the flesh resist the heft, the puncture coolly tries. That not a pore be overlooked, of all this compound frame. As manifold for anguish, as species be for name." 295. "Father, I bring thee not myself -- that were the little load. I bring thee the imperial heart I had not strength to hold. The heart I cherished in my own till mine, too heavy grew. Yet, strangest, heavier, since it went, is too large for you." 296. "Where ships of purple gently toss on seas of daffodil, fantastic sailors mingle, and then the wharf is still." 297. "This is the land the sunset washes. These are the banks of the Yellow Sea. Where it rose or whither it rushes, these are the western mystery. Night after night her purple traffic strews the landing with opal bales. Merchantmen poise upon horizons, dip, and vanish like orioles." 298. "The doomed regard the sunshine with different delight because when next it burns aboard, they doubt to witness it. The man, to die tomorrow, harks for the meadow bird because its music stirs the axe that clamors for his head. Joyful, to whom the sunrise precedes enamored -- day. Joyful for whom the meadow bird has ought but elegy." 299. "Did we disobey him? Just one time. Charged us to forget him. But we couldn't learn. Were himself, such a deuce, what would we do? Love the duel lad best. Or, wouldn't you?" ^E02:07:03 ^B02:07:19 >> Martha Nell Smith. "Unto like story, trouble has enticed me. How kinsmen fell. Brothers and sisters who preferred the glory and their young will bent to the scaffold, or in dungeons chanted 'til God's full time. When they let go the ignominy, smiling, and shame went still. Unto guessed crests, my moaning fancy, leads me. Worn fair by heads rejected in the lower country of honors there. Such spirit makes her perpetual mention, that I, grown bold, step martial at my crucifixion as trumpets rolled. Feet, small as mine, have marched in revolution, firm to the drum, hands not so stout, hoisted them in witness when speech went numb. Let me not shame their sublime deportments, drilled bright, beckoning Etruscan invitation toward light." 301. "One year ago jots what? God, spell the word. I can't. It wasn't Grace. Not that. Was't glory? That will do. Spell slower, glory. Such anniversary shall be sometimes, not often, in eternity. When farther parted than the common woe, look, feed upon each other's faces. So in doubtful meal, if it be possible, their banquet's true. I tasted, careless then. I did not know the wine came once a world. Did you? Oh, had you told me so, this thirst would blister easier now. You said it hurt you -- most, mine was an Acorn's Breast and could not know how fondness grew, in shaggier vest. Perhaps I couldn't, but had you looked in, a giant eye to eye with you, had been -- no Acorn, then. So, twelve months ago we, we breathed, then dropped the air -- which bore it best? Was this, the patientest, because it was a child, you know, and could not value -- air? If to be elder, mean most pain -- I'm old enough, today, I'm certain then, as old as thee, how soon? One birthday more, or ten? Let me choose! Ah, sir, none!" 302. "It's like the light, a fashionless delight. It's like the bee, a dateless melody. It's like the woods, private like breeze, phraseless, yet it stirs the proudest trees. It's like the morning, best when it's done, and the everlasting clocks chime noon." ^E02:11:34 ^B02:11:52 >> Sharon Shalow [assumed spelling]. 303. "Alone, I cannot be, for hosts do visit me, recordless company who baffles key. They have no robes, not names, no almanacs, not climes, but general homes like gnomes. Their coming may be known, by couriers within their going is not, for they're never gone." 304. "The nearest dream recedes unrealized, the heaven we chase like the June bee before the schoolboy invites the race; stoops to an easy clover -- dips, evades, teases, deploys then to the royal clouds, lifts his light pinnace, heedlace of the boy staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky. Homesick for steadfast honey, ah, the bee flys not that brews that rare variety." 305. "What if I say I shall not wait? What if I burst the fleshly gate and pass, escaped, to thee? What if I file this mortal off, see where it hurts me -- that's enough, and wade in liberty? They cannot take me any more, dungeons can call and guns implore; unmeaning now to me. As laughter was an hour ago, or laces, or a traveling show, or who died yesterday!" 306. "A shady friend for torrid days is easier to find, than one of higher temperature for frigid hour of mind. The vane a little to the East, scares Muslin souls away. If broadcloth hearts are firmer than those or Organdy, who is to blame? The Weaver? Ah, the bewildering thread! The tapestries of paradise so notelessly, are made." 307. "A solemn thing it was, I said. A woman, white to be, and wear if God should count me fit, her blameless mystery. A hallowed thing to drop a life into the purple well, too plummetless that it return eternity, until I pondered how the bliss would look, and would it feel as big when it -- when I could take it in my hand as hovering seen through fog. And then, the size of this small life, the sages call it small, swelled like horizons in my vest. And I sneered softly, small." 308. "I breathed enough to take the trick and now removed from air, I simulate the breath, so well, that one to be quite sure the lungs are stirless -- must descend among the cunning cells and touch the pantomime himself, how numb the bellows feels." 309. "Kill your balm, it's odors bless you. Bare your Jessamine to the storm and she will fling her maddest perfume haply, your summer night to charm. Stab the bird that built in your bosom -- oh, could you catch her last refrain. Bubble, forgive, some better, bubble! Carol for him when I am gone." 310. "Heaven is what I cannot reach. The apple on the tree provided it do hopeless hang that Heaven, is to me. The color, on the cruising cloud, the interdicted land, behind the hill, the house behind. There paradise is found. Her teasing purples, afternoon. The credulous decoy, enamored of the conjuror that spurned us, yesterday." ^E02:16:39 ^B02:16:54 >> And before we have Jane Wald come up, is Arianna Calabresi or is Emily Powers here? And if you are a reader that's here, please be sure to sign in and check in with us. If not, Jane Wald. ^E02:17:07 ^B02:17:29 >> Jane Wald -- 313. >> Three eleven. >> Thank you. 311. "I know some lonely houses off the road, a robber'd like the look of. Wooden barred and windows hanging low, inviting to a portico, where two could creep. One -- hand the tools, the other peep, to make sure all's asleep, old fashioned eyes not easy to surprise! How orderly the kitchen'd look by night, with just a clock, but they could gag the tick and mice won't bark and so the walls, don't tell, none will. A pair of spectacles ajar just stir, an almanac's aware. Was it the mat, winked or a nervous star? The moon slides down the stair, to see who' there. There's plunder where tankard or spoon, earring or stone, a watch, some ancient brooch to match the grandmamma, staid sleeping there. Day, rattles too, stealth's slow, the sun has got as far as the third Sycamore, screams Chanticleer, "Who's there?" And echoes, trains away, sneer, "Where." While the old couple, just astir, fancy the sunrise, left the door ajar." 312. "I can wade grief, whole pools of it, I'm used to that. But the least push of joy breaks up my feet and I tip -- drunken. Let no pebble smile, 'twas the new liquor, that was all. Power is only pain, stranded, through discipline, till weights will hang. Give balm to giants, and they'll wilt like men. Give Himmaleh, they'll carry him." 313. "You see I cannot see your lifetime, I must guess how many times it ache for me today, confess. How many times for my far sake the brave eyes film, but I guess guessing hurts -- mine, get so dim. Too vague, the face, my own, so patient, covets, too far the strength, my timidness enfolds, haunting the heart like her translated faces, teasing the want it only can suffice." 314. "Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops, at all. And sweetest, in the Gale is heard, and sore must be the storm that could abash the little bird that kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chilliest land and on the strangest sea, yet, never in extremity, it asked a crumb, of me. 315. "To die takes just a little while, they say it doesn't hurt, it's only fainter by degrees and then, it's out of sight. A darker ribbon for a day, a crape upon the hat, and then the pretty sunshine comes and helps us to forget. The absent, mystic, creature that but for love of us, had gone to sleep that soundest time without the weariness." 316. "If I'm lost, now that I was found, shall still my transport be, that once, on me, those Jasper Gates blazed open, suddenly. That in my awkward, gazing, face, the Angels softly peered, and touched me with their fleeces, almost as if they cared. I'm banished now, you know it, how foreign that can be, you'll know, sir, when the Savior's face turns so, away from you." ^E02:22:12 ^B02:22:27 >> M.S. Davis. "Delight is as the flight or in the ratio of it, as the schools would say, the rainbow's way, a skein flung colored, after rain, would suit as bright, except that flight, where aliment. If it would last, I asked the East, when the bent stripe struck up my childish firmament, and I, for glee, tool rainbows, as the common way, and empty skies the eccentricity. And so with lives, and so with butterflies, seen magic, through the fright that they will cheat the sight, and dower latitudes far on, some sudden morn, our portion in the fashion -- done." 318. " She sweeps with many-colored brooms and leaves the shreds behind, oh housewife in the evening West, come back, and dust the pond! You dropped a purple raveling in, you dropped an amber thread, and now you've littered all the East with duds of Emerald! And still, she plies her spotted thrift and still the seam prevails, till dusk obstructs the diligence or contemplation fails. 319. "Of Bronze and Blaze, the North tonight, so adequate it forms, so preconcerted with itself , so distant to alarms. An unconcern so sovereign to Universe or me, infects my simple spirit with taints of majesty. Till I take vaster attitudes, and strut upon my stem, disdaining men and oxygen, for arrogance of them. My Splendor's are Menagerie, but their completeless show will entertain the centuries when I, am long ago, an island in dishonored grass, whom none but daisies -- know." 320. "There's a certain slant of light, winter afternoons, that oppresses like the heft of cathedral tunes. Heavenly hurt it gives us; we can find no scar, but internal difference where the meanings are. None may teach it any till -- 'tis the seal, despair. An imperial affliction sent us of the air. When it comes, the landscape listens, shadows hold their breath; when it goes, 'tis like the distance on the look of death." 321. "Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple, leaping like leopards to the sky. Then at the feet of the old Horizon, laying her spotted face to die. Stooping as low as the Otter's window, touching the roof and tinting the barn, kissing her bonnet to the meadow and the juggler of day is gone." 322. "Good Night! Which put the candle out? A jealous Zephyr, not a doubt. Ah, friend, you little knew how long at that celestial wick the Angels labored diligent, extinguished now, for you. It might, have been the Light House spark, some sailor rowing in the dark, had importuned to see. It might have been the waning lamp that lit the drummer from the camp to purer Reveille!" ^E02:26:34 ^B02:26:47 >> Thank you. Where were you, right here. Martha Nell Smith -- 323. "Read, sweet, how others, strove till we, are stouter, what they renounced, till we, are less afraid. How many times they bore the faithful witness, till we are helped, as if a Kingdom, cared! Read then, of faith, that shone above the fagot, clear strains of Hymn the river could not drown. Brave names of men and celestial women, passed out of record into -- renown!" 324. "Put up my lute! What of my music! Since the sole ear I cared to charm, passive as granite, laps my music, sobbing, will suit, as well as psalm! Would but the Memnon of the desert teach me the strain that vanquished him, when he surrendered to the sunrise, maybe that, would awaken, them! 325. "There came a day at Summer's full, entirely for me. I thought that such were for the Saints, where resurrections, be. The sun, as common, went abroad, the flowers, accustomed blew, as if no soul the solstice passed that maketh all things new. The time was scarce profaned, by speech, the symbol of a word was needless, as at Sacrament, the wardrobe, of our Lord. Each was to each the Sealed Church, permitted to commune this time, lest we too awkward show at supper of the lamb. The hours slid fast as hours will, clutched tight by greedy hands, so faces on two decks, look back, bound to opposing lands. And so when all the time had failed, without external sound each bound the other's crucifix, we gave no other bond. Sufficient troth, that we shall rise, deposed at length, the grave, to that new marriage, justified -- through calvaries of love." 326. "The lonesome for they know not what, the Eastern exiles be, who strayed beyond the amber line some madder holiday. And ever since, the purple moat they strive to climb in vain, as birds, that tumble from the clouds do fumble at the strain. The blessed Ether, taught them, some transatlantic moon, when Heaven was too common to miss, too sure, to dote upon." 327. "How the old mountains drip with Sunset, how the Hemlocks burn. How the Dun Brake is draped in cinder by the Wizard Sun. How the old Steeples hand the Scarlet till the ball is full, have I the lip of the Flamingo that I dare to tell? Then, how the fire ebbs like Billows, touching all the grass with a departing, Sapphire, feature, as a Duchess passed. How a small Dusk crawls on the village till the houses blot and the old Flambeau, no men carry glimmer on the street. Now it is night, in nest and kennel, and where was the wood, just a dome of Abyss is bowing into solitude. These are the visions flitted Guido, Titian never knew, Domenichino dropped his pencil, paralyzed, with gold." ^E02:32:09 ^B02:32:16 There you go. >> Emily Powers. 328. "Of tribulation, these are they, denoted by the white, the spangled gowns, a lesser rank of victors, designate. All these, did conquer, but the ones who overcame most times, wear nothing commoner than snow, no ornament, but palms. Surrender, is an unknown, of this superior soil, defeat and outgrown anguish, remembered as the mile. Our panting ankle barely passed, when night devoured the road, but we, stood whispering in the house, and all we said, was saved." 329. "If your nerve deny you, go above your nerve, he can lean against the grave if he fear to swerve. That's a steady posture, never any bend held of those brass arms, best giant made. If your soul seesaw, lift the flesh door, the Poltroon wants oxygen, nothing more." 330. "He put the belt around my life, I heard the buckle snap and turned away, imperial, my lifetime folding up. Deliberate, as a Duke would do, a Kingdom's title deed, henceforth, a dedicated sort, a member of the cloud. Yet not too far to come at call, and do the little toils that make the circuit of the rest, and deal occasional smiles to lives that stoop to notice mine, and kindly ask it in, whose invitation, know you not for whom I must decline?" 331. "The only ghost I ever saw was dressed in Mechlin, so -- he had no sandal on his foot, and stepped like flakes of snow. His mind was soundless like the bird, but rapid like the Roe, his fashions quaint, Mosaic or haply, Mistletoe. His conversation, seldom, his laughter, like the breeze that dies away in dimples among the pensive trees. Our interview was transient, of me, himself was shy, and God forbid I look behind, since that appalling day!" 332. "Doubt me! My dim companion! Why, God, would be content with but a fraction of the life, poured thee, without a stint. The whole of me, forever, what more the woman can, say quick, that I may dower thee with that delight I own! I cannot be my spirit for that was thine, before, I ceded all of dust I knew, what opulence the more had I, a freckled maiden, whose farthest of degree, was, that she might, from distant Heaven, dwell timidly with thee! Sift her, from brow to barefoot. Strain till your last surmise, drop, like a tapestry, away, before the fire's eyes. Winnow her finest fondness, but hallow just the snow intact, in everlasting flake, oh, Caviler, for you!" 333. "Many a phrase has the English language, I have heard but one, low as the laughter of the cricket, loud, as the thunder's tongue. Murmuring, like old Caspian choirs, till the tide's a' lull, saying itself in a new infliction, like a whippoorwill. Breaking in bright orthography on my simple sleep, thundering its prospective, till I stir, and weep. Not for the sorrow, done me, but the push of joy, say it again, Saxon! Hush, only to me!" ^E02:36:30 ^B02:36:42 >> Maryanne Nobel. 334. "Of all the sounds despatched abroad, there's not a charge to me like that old measure in the boughs, that phraseless melody, the wind does, working like a hand, whose fingers comb the sky, then quiver down, with tufts of tune, permitted Gods, and me. Inheritance, it is, to us, beyond the art to earn, beyond the trait to take away by robber, since the gain is gotten not of fingers, and inner than the bone, hid golden, for the whole of days, and even in the urn, I cannot vouch the merry dust do not arise and play in some odd pattern of its own, some quainter holiday, when winds go round and round in bands, and thrum upon the door, and birds take places overhead, to bear them orchestra. I crave him grace of Summer boughs, if such an outcast be, who never heard that fleshless chant, rise, solemn, on the tree. As if some caravan of sound off desserts in the sky, had parted rank, then knit, knit and swept, in seamless company." 335. "Her smile was shaped like other smiles, the dimples ran along, and still it hurt you, as some bird did hoist herself, to sing, then recollect a ball, she got, and hold upon the twig, convulsive, while the music broke, like beads among the bog. A happy lip breaks sudden, it doesn't state you how it contemplated, smiling, just consummated now, but this one wears its merriment so patient like a pane, fresh guilded to allude the eyes unqualified to scan." 336. "Before I got my eye put out I liked as well to see, as other creatures, that have eyes and know no other way, but were it told to me, today, that I might have the sky for mine, I tell you that my heart would split, for size of me. The meadows -- mine, the mountains -- mine, all forests -- stintless stars, as much of noon as I could take between my finite eyes. The motions of the dipping birds, the morning's Amber Road, for mine, to look at when I liked, the news would strike me dead. So safer, guess, with just my soul upon the window pane, where other creatures put their eyes, incautious, of the sun." 337. "Of nearness to her sundered things the soul has special times, when dimness, looks the oddity, distinctness, easy seems. The shapes we buried dwell about, familiar, in the rooms, untarnished by the Sepulchre, the Mouldering Playmate comes. In just the jacket that he wore, long buttoned in the mold, since we, old mornings, children, played divided, by a world. The grave yields back her robberies, the years, our pilfered things, bright knots of apparitions salute us, with their wings as we, it were, that perished, themselves, had just remained till we rejoin them, and 'twas they, and not ourself that mourned." 338. "Tie the strings to my life, Lord, then, I am ready to go! Just a look at the horses, rapid! That will do! Put me in on the firmest side, so I shall never fall. For we must ride to the judgment, and it's partly, down hill. But never I mind the steepest, and never I mind the Sea, held fast in everlasting race, by my own choice, and thee. Goodbye to the life I used to live and the world I used to know, and kiss the hills for me, just once, then, I am ready to go." ^E02:41:29 ^B02:41:47 >> Leslie Knoblock [assumed spelling]. 339. "I like a look of agony, because I know it's true. Men do not sham convulsion nor simulate, a throe. The eyes glance once, and that is death, impossible to feign the beads upon the forehead by homely anguish strung." 340. "I felt a funeral, in my brain, and mourners to and fro kept treading, treading till it seemed that sense was breaking through. And when they all were seated, a Service like a drum, kept beating, beating till I thought my mind was going numb. And then I heard them lift a box and creak across my soul with those same boots of lead again, then space, began to toll, as all the Heavens were a bell, and being, but an ear, and I, and silence, some strange race wrecked, solitary, here. And then a plank in reason, broke, and I dropped down and down, and hit a world, at every plunge, and finished knowing, then." Number 341. "Tis so appalling, it exhilarates, so over horror, it half captivates. The soul stares after it, secure, to know the worst leaves no dread more. To scan a ghost, is faint, but grappling conquers it, how easy, torment, now, suspense kept sawing so. The truth, is bald and cold, but that will hold if any are not sure, we show them, prayer, but we, who know, stop hoping, now. Looking at death, is dying, just let go the breath, and not the pillow in your cheek so slumbereth. Others can wrestle, yours, is done. And so of woe, bleak dreaded, come, it sets the fright at liberty, and terror's free, gay, ghastly, holiday!" 342. "How noteless men, and Pleiads, stand, until a sudden sky reveals the fact that one is rapt forever from the eye. Members of the invisible, existing, while we stare, in leagueless opportunity, o'ertakers, as the air. Why didn't we detain them? The Heavens with a smile, sweep by our disappointed heads without a syllable." 343. "When we stand on the tops of things and like the trees, look down, the smoke all cleared away from it, the mirrors on the scene. Just laying light, no soul will wink except it have the flaw, the sound ones, like the hills, shall stand, no lightning, scares away. The perfect, nowhere be afraid, they bear their dauntless heads, where others, dare not go at noon, protected by their deeds. The stars dare shine occasionally upon a spotted world, and suns, go surer, for their proof, as if an axle, held." 344. "Twas just this time last year, I died. I know I heard the corn, when I was carried by the farms, it had the tassels on. I thought how yellow it would look, when Richard went to mill, and then, I wanted to get out, by something held my will. I thought just how red, apples wedged the stubble's joints between, and carts stooping around the fields to take the pumpkins in. I wondered which would miss me, least, and when Thanksgiving, came if Father'd multiply the plates, to make an even sum. And would it blur he Christmas glee my stocking hang too high for any Santa Claus to reach the altitude of me. But this sort, grieved myself, and so, I thought the other way, how just this time, some perfect year, themself, should come to me." 345. "Afraid! Of who am I afraid? Not death, for who is he? The Porter of my father's lodge as much abasheth me! Of life? Twere odd I fear a thing that comprehendeth me in one or two existences, just as the case may be. Of resurrection? Is the East afraid to trust the morn with her fastidious forehead? As soon impeach my crown!" 346. "He showed me heights I never saw, would'st climb, he said? I said, not so. With me, he said, with me? He showed me secrets, morning's nest, the rope the nights were put across, and now, would'st have me for a guest? I could not find my yes, and then he brake his life, and though, a light for me, did solemn glow, the larger, as the face withdrew, and could I further know, no? ^E02:46:48 ^B02:47:00 >> Reb Livingston. 347. "I dreaded that first Robin so, but he is mastered now, I'm some accustomed to him grown, he hurts a little, though. I thought if I could only live till that first shout got by, not all pianos in the woods had power to mangle me. I dared not meet the daffodils, for fear their yellow gown would pierce me with a fashion so foreign to my own. I wished the grass would hurry, so when 'twas time to see, he'd be too tall, the tallest one, could stretch to look at me. I could not bear the bees should come, I wished they'd stay away in those dim countries where they go, what word had they, for me? They're here, though; not a creature failed, no blossom stayed away in gentle deference to me, the Queen of Calvary. Each one salutes me, as he goes, and I, my childish plumes, lift, in bereaved acknowledgment of their unthinking drums." 348. "I would not paint, a picture, I'd rather be the one its bright impossibility to dwell, delicious on. And wonder how the fingers feel whose rare, celestial, stir, evokes so sweet a torment, such sumptuous despair. I would not talk, like Cornets, I'd rather be the one raised softly to the ceilings, and out, and easy on, through villages of Ether, myself endued balloon by but a lip of metal, the pier to my Pontoon. Nor would I be a poet, it's finer, own the ear, enamored, impotent content, the license to revere, a privilege so awful what would the dower be, had I the art to stun myself with bolts of melody." 349. "He touched me, so I live to now that such a day, permitted so, I groped upon his breast, it was a boundless place to me and silenced, as the awful sea puts minor streams to rest. And now I'm different from before, as if I breathed superior air, or brushed a royal gown, my feet too, that had wandered so, my Gypsy face, transfigured now, to tenderer renown. Into this port, I might come, Rebecca, to Jerusalem, would not so ravished turn, nor Persian, baffled at her shrine, lift such a crucifixial sign to her imperial sun." 350. "I had the glory, that will do, an honor, thought can turn her to when lesser fames invite, with one long nay, bliss early shape deforming, dwindling, gulfing up, time's possibility." 351. "She sights a bird, she chuckles, she flattens, then she crawls. She runs without the look of feet, her eyes increase to balls, her jaws stir, twitching, hungry, her teeth can hardly stand, she leaps, but Robin leaped the first, ah, pussy of the sand. The hopes so juicy ripening, you almost bathed your tongue, when bliss disclosed a hundred toes and fed with everyone." 352. "They leave us with the infinite, but ne, is not a man, his fingers are the size of fists, his fists the size of men. And whom he foundeth, with him arm, ah Himmaleh, stand -- shall stand, Gibraltar's everlasting shoe poised lightly on his hand. So trust him comrade, you for you, and I, for you and me, eternity is ample, and quick enough if true." 353. "I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs. The name they dropped upon my face with water, in the country church is finishing use -- is finished using now, and they can put it with my dolls, my childhood, and the strings of spools, I've finished threading, too. Baptized, before, without the choice, but this time, consciously, of Grace, unto supremest name, called to my full, the crescent dropped, existence whole arc, filled up, with one small Diadem. My second rank, too small the first, crowned, crowing, on my father's breast, a half unconscious Queen, but this time, Adequate, erect, with will to choose, or to reject, and I choose, just a crown." ^E02:52:25 ^B02:52:35 >> Leslie Smith. 354. "If anybody's friend be dead, it's sharpest of the theme, the thinking how they walked alive at such and such a time. Their costume of a Sunday, some manner of their hair, a prank nobody knew but them lost, in the Sepulchre. How warm, they were, on such a day, you almost feel the date, so short way off it seems, and now, they're centuries from that. How pleased they were, at what you said, you try to touch the smile and dip your fingers in the frost, when was it, can you tell? You asked the company to tea, acquaintance, just a few, and chatted close with this grand thing that don't remember you. Past bows, and invitations, past interview and vow, past what ourself can estimate, that makes that -- makes the quick of woe!" 355. "It was not death, for I stood up, and all the dead, lie down. It was not night, for all the bells put their tongues, for noon. It was not frost, for on my flesh I felt Siroccos, crawl, nor fire for just my marble feet could keep a Chancel, cool. And yet, it tasted, like them all, the figures I have seen set orderly, for burial, reminded me, of mine. As if my life were shaven and fitted to a frame, and could not breath without a key, and 'twas like midnight some. When everything that ticked, has stopped, and spaces stares -- and space stares all around, oh grisly frosts, first Autumn morns, repeal the beating ground. But most, like Chaos, stopless, cool, without a chance, or spar, or even a report of land, to justify, despair." 356. "If you were coming in the fall I'd brush the summer by with half a smile and half a spurn, as housewives do a fly. If I could see you in a year, I'd wind the months in balls and put them each in separate drawers for fear the numbers hues. If only centuries delayed, I'd count them on my hand, subtracting until my fingers dropped into Van Dieman's Land. If certain, when this life was out, that yours and mine should be, I'd toss it yonder, like a rind, and take eternity. But, now, uncertain of the length of this, that is between, it goads me like the Goblin Bee that will not state it's sting." 357. "I felt my life with both my hand to see if it were there. I held my spirit to the glass to prove it possibler. I turned my being round and round and paused at every pound to ask the owner's name for doubt that I should know the sound. I judged my features, jarred my hair. I pushed my dimples by and waited. If they twinkled back, conviction might of me. I told myself, take courage, friend, that was a former time. But we might learn to like the heaven as well as our old home." ^E02:57:01 ^B02:57:12 That one. >> Susan Tishing [assumed spelling], Number 358. "Perhaps I asked too large. I take no less than skies, for earth's grow thick as berries in my native town. My basket holds just firmaments, those dangle easy on my arm. But smaller bundles cram." 359. "A bird came down the walk. He did not know I saw. He bit an angleworm in halves and ate the fellow raw. And then he drank a dew from a convenient grass, and then hopped sidewise to the wall to let a beetle pass. He glanced with rapid eyes that hurried all abroad [sic]. They looked like frightened beads, I thought. He stirred his velvet head. Like one in danger, cautious, I offered him a crumb and he unrolled his feathers and rowed him softer home. Than oars divide the ocean, too silver for a seam, or butterflies off banks of noon leap, plashless as they swim." 360. "The soul has bandaged moments. When too appalled to stir, she feels some ghastly fright come up and stop to look at her. Salute her with long finger. Caress her freezing hair. Sip, goblin, from the very lips, the lover hovered o'er. Unworthy that a thought so mean accost a theme so fair. The soul has moments of escape when bursting all the doors. She dances like a bomb abroad and swings upon the hours. As do the bee, delirious borne, long dungeoned from his rose. Touch liberty then know no more, but noon and paradise. The soul's retaken moments when felon led along with shackles on the plumed feet, and staples in the song. The horror welcomes her again. These are not brayed of tongue." ^M02:59:42 Like flowers -- number 361. "Like flowers that heard the news of dews, but never deemed the dripping prize awaited their low brows. Or bees that thought the summer's name some rumor of delirium. No summer could for them. Or arctic creatures dimly stirred by tropic hint, some traveled bird imported to the wood. Or wind's bright signal to the ear, making that homely and severe, contented, known, before. The heaven unexpected come to lives that thought the worshipping a too presumptuous Psalm." 362. "It's thoughts and just one heart and old sunshine about make frugal ones content. And two or three for company upon a holiday crowded as sacrament. Books when the unit spare the tenant long enough, a picture, if it care, itself a gallery too rare for needing more. Flowers to keep the eyes from going awkward when it snows. A bird if they prefer. Though winter fire sing clear as plover to our ear. A landscape not so great to suffocate the eye. A hill, perhaps. Perhaps the profile of a mill turned by the wind though such are luxuries. It's thoughts and just two heart and heaven about. At least a counterfeit. We would not have correct and immortality can be almost not quite content." 363. "I know a place where summer strives with such a practiced frost. She even year leads her daisies back, recording briefly lost. But when the south wind stirs the pools and struggles in the lanes, her heart misgives her for her vow and she pours soft refrains into the lap of adamant. And spices and the dew that stiffens quietly to quartz upon her amber shoe." ^E03:02:27 ^B03:02:38 >> Arriana Calabrasay [assumed spelling]. 364. "As far from pity as complaint, as cool to speech as stone, as numb to revelation as if my trade were bone. As far from time as history, as near yourself today. As children to the rainbow scarf or sunset's yellow play. To eyelids in the sepulchre, how dumb the danger lies while color's revelations break and blaze the butterflies!" 365. "I know that he exists. Somewhere in silence he has hid his rare life from our gross eyes. 'Tis an instant's play, 'tis a fond ambush just to make bliss earn her own surprise. But should the play prove piercing earnest, should the glee glaze in death's stiff stare would not the fun look too expensive! Would not the jest have crawled too far!" 366. "He strained my faith. Did he find it supple? Shook my strong trust. Did it then yield? Hurled my belief, but did he shatter it? Racked with suspense, not a nerve failed! Wrung me with anguish but I never doubted him, 'tho for what wrong he did never say. Stabbed while I sued his sweet forgiveness. Jesus, it's your little John! Don't you know me?" 367. "I tend my flowers for thee bright absentee. My fuchsia's coral seams rip while the sower dreams. Geraniums tint and spot, low daisies dot. My cactus splits her beard to show her throat. Carnations tip their spice, and bees pick up a hyacinth I hid. Puts out a ruffled head and odors fall from flasks so small you marvel how they held. Globe roses break their satin flake upon my garden floor. Yet thou not there I had as lief they bore. No crimson more they flower be gay her lord away! It ill becometh me. I'll dwell in calyx, gray. How modestly always they daisy draped for thee!" 368. "I envy seas, whereon he rides. I envy spokes of wheels of chariots that him convey. I envy crooked hills that gaze upon his journey. How easy all can see what is forbidden utterly as heaven unto me! I envy nests of sparrows that dot his distance eaves. The wealthy fly upon his pane, the happy, happy leaves that just abroad his window have summer's leaves to play. The ear rings of Pizarro could not obtain for me. I envy light that wakes him and bells that boldly ring to tell him it is noon abroad. Myself be noon to him. Yet interdict my blossom and abrogate my bee lest noon and everlasting light drop Gabriel and me." ^E03:06:53 ^B03:07:11 >> Paulette Beet [assumed spelling]. 369. "Those fair fictitious people the women plucked away from our familiar lifetime, the mean of ivory. Those boys and girls in canvas who stay upon the wall in everlasting keepsake. Can anybody tell? We trust in places perfecter, inheriting delight beyond our faint conjecture, our dizzy estimate. Remembering ourselves, we trust yet blesseder than we through knowing where we only hope, receiving where we pay of expectation, also anticipating us with transport, that would be a pain except for holiness. Esteeming us as exile, themself admitted home through easy miracle of death, the way ourself must come." 370. "Within my garden rides a bird upon a single wheel, whose spokes a dizzy music make as 'twere a travelling mill. He never stops, but slackens above the ripest rose. Partakes without alighting and praises as he goes, till every spice is tasted and then his fairy gig reels in remoter atmospheres. And I rejoin my dog, and he and I perplex us if positive 'twere we, or bore the garden in the brain this curiosity. But he, the best logician, refers my clumsy eye to just vibrating blossoms and exquisite reply!" 371. "Is bliss then such abyss, I must not put my foot amiss for fear I spoil my shoe? I'd rather suit my foot than save my boot, for yet to buy another pair is possible at any store, but bliss is sold just once. The patent lost, none buy it anymore. Say, foot, decide the point, the lady cross or not? Verdict for boot!" 372. "After great pain a formal feeding comes. The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs, the stiff heart questions was it He that bore and yesterday or centuries before? The feet, mechanical, go round a wooden way of ground or air, or ought, regardless grown, a quartz contentment like a stone. This is the hour of lead, remembered, if outlives, as freezing persons recollect the snow, first chill, then stupor, then the letting go." ^M03:10:30 373. "This world is not conclusion. A species stands beyond, invisible as music, but positive as sound. It beckons and it baffles. Philosophy don't know. And through a riddle at the last sagacity must go. To guess it puzzles scholars, to gain it, men have borne contempt of generations and crucifixion shown. Faith slips and laughs and rallies, blushes if any see, plucks at a twig of evidence and asks a vane the way. Much gesture from the pulpit, strong hallelujahs roll. Narcotics cannot still the tooth that nibbles at the soul." ^E03:11:26 ^B03:11:33 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov. ^E03:11:39