Sunday, October 03, 2004 THRENODY [- Threnody – A poem, song or piece of music of mourning or lamentation – Greek threnoida: threnos , lament + oide, song -] Second stanza from ‘Threnody’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) In the poem he mourns the death of his son -- I see my empty house, I see my trees repair their boughs, And he, —the wondrous child, Whose silver warble wild Outvalued every pulsing sound Within the air's cerulean round, The hyacinthine boy, for whom Morn well might break, and April bloom, The gracious boy, who did adorn The world where into he was born, And by his countenance repay The favor of the loving Day, Has disappeared from the Day's eye; Far and wide she cannot find him, My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him. Returned this day the south-wind searches And finds young pines and budding birches, But finds not the budding man; Nature who lost him, cannot remake him; Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him; Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain. RALPH WALDO EMERSON -- DEATH of a QAXAQUENIAN So huge is God’s despair In the wild cactus plain I heard Him weeping there That I might venture there The peon had been slain So huge is God’s despair On the polluted air Twixt moonday and the rain I heard Him weeping there And felt His anguish tear For refuge in my brain So huge is God’s despair That it could find a lair In one so small and vain I heard Him weeping there Oh vaster than our share Than deserts of new Spain So huge is God’s despair I heard him weeping there... MALCOLM LOWRY From: Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry – City Lights Books -- NEW PLACE You lie on a bed with three long thin cats one white, one ginger, one black the long brushes of their tails. While nine thousand miles away Philip Guston lies with three tubes of paint -white, cadmium red, black- and three brushes beside him in his grave. GREGORY O’BRIEN From: SOHO SQUARE FOUR – Bloomsbury Publishing -- posted by Walter at 10/3/2004