Summer’s lease hath all too short a date…
—- Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book.
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
~Wallace Stevens
First Lesson
Lie back, daughter, let your head
Be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread your arms
Wide, lie out on the stream and look high at the gulls.
A dead-man’s-float is face down. You will dive
And swim soon enough where this tidewater
Ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
Me, when you tire on your long swim
To your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
And let go, remember when fear
Cramps your heart what I told you:
Lie gently and wide to the light-year stars,
Lie back, and the sea will hold you.
—Philip Booth
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