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“O
sweeter than the marriage-feast,
’Tis
sweeter far to me,
To walk
together to the kirk
With a
goodly company!”
The two
youngest and I have been reading Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
aloud together since last week, one section per day. We read the final section
this morning, where the passage quoted occurs. How appropriate, and how
fitting, even though I had only vague memories of the poem when we decided to
read it after finishing Spenser’s Shepherd’s
Calendar.
When I
asked my kids what they wanted to read next, my 17-year-old said, with a
knowing smile, “The Wasteland.” Her older brother was looking through his
poetry book to see if it was in there so he could go ahead an mark the place
for tomorrow.
“What’s the first line of that?” he said.
“What’s the first line of that?” he said.
“‘April
is the cruelest month,’” she said, and we all laughed.
I love both of your literary gleanings that are so fitting. :-)
ReplyDeleteI've been amazed at how timely so much of what we've been reading is -- I mean, stuff that was chosen months (or even centuries) ago. I'm leading a group study on Shakespeare's As You Like It, and the week we all went into self-isolation/social distancing was the week we read the exiled Duke Senior saying:
Delete"Sweet are the uses of adversity . . .
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything."
And this was the collect for the Sunday the day before we had that meeting:
Third Sunday in Lent
Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves
to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and
inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all
adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil
thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the
Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Wonderful! I so appreciate your sharing both of those. I feel the same way about all of my recent reading and that of my book club -- except maybe Camus's The Plague -- haha! -- but that wasn't my idea, and I didn't finish it. It's made me realize how good and true literature is that because it carries stories and themes that speak to our human nature and experience that is fundamentally unchanging.
ReplyDeleteOne use of this adversity might be the connecting us with more people through our having more time for reading and vicarious experience. Thank you, again!