Epigraph to Lustra
#AmericanWriters
At the table beyond us With her little suede slippers off… With her white-stocking’d feet Carefully kept from the floor by a… She converses:
Thick is the darkness - Sunward, O, sunward! Rough is the highway - Onward, still onward! Dawn harbours surely
For a moment she rested against me Like a swallow half blown to the w… And they talk of Swinburne’s wome… And the shepherdess meeting with… And the harlots of Baudelaire.
FROM PROPERTIUS, ELEG… Here let thy clemency, Persephone… Do thou, Pluto, bring here no gre… So many thousand beauties are gone… Ye might let one remain above with…
Let some new lying ass, Who knows not what is or was, Talk economics, Pay for his witless noise, Get the kid nice new toys,
How have I laboured? How have I not laboured To bring her soul to birth, To give these elements a name and… She is beautiful as the sunlight,…
Erinna is a model parent, Her children have never discovered… Lalage is also a model parent, Her offspring are fat and happy.
To So-Kin of Rakuyo, ancient fri… Gen. Now I remember that you built me… By the south side of the bridge at… With yellow gold and white jewels,…
What have I done for you, England, my England? What is there I would not do, England, my own? With your glorious eyes austere,
A dainty thing’s the Villanelle. Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme, It serves its purpose passing well… A doublc-clappered silver bell That must be made to clink in chim…
Though thou well dost wish me ill Audiart, Audiart, Where thy bodice laces start As ivy fingers clutching through Its crevices,
Why, my heart, do we love her so? (Geraldine, Geraldine!) Why does the great sea ebb and flo… Why does the round world spin? Geraldine, Geraldine,
Beautiful, tragical faces’ Ye that were whole, and are so sun… And, O ye vile, ye that might hav… That are so sodden and drunken, Who hath forgotten you?
Nine adulteries, 12 liaisons, 64 f… Rest nightly upon the soul of our… And yet the man is so quiet and re… That he passes for both bloodless… Bastidides, on the contrary, who b…
The thought of what America would… If the Classics had a wide circul… Troubles my sleep, The thought of what America, The thought of what America,