Two selections that may seem more different than they are, though I leave it to the reader to decide for him or herself. While on the the seasonal road toward ice we may avoid the worst of Dante's hell. The Stars of Housman are for all to see and some to tell.
“THE BANNERS of Hell’s Monarch do come forth
Toward us; therefore look,” so spake my guide,
“If thou discern him.” As, when breathes a cloud
Heavy and dense, or when the shades of night
Fall on our hemisphere, seems view’d from far
A windmill, which the blast stirs briskly round;
Such was the fabric then methought I saw.
Dante, Inferno, from Canto XXXIV
Stars,I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
And still the sea is salt.
A.E. Houseman, 1936
1 comment:
Thanks for the great poem.
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