August 23, 2014

Years ago, my sister Nancy gave me A Book of Days for the Literary Year.  Here's an example of what the book contains.

August 23 Virgo - the virgin - begins (through September 22)

1799 William Blake writes to Dr. John Trusler: "You say that I want somebody to elucidate my ideas. But you ought to know that what is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men."

1851 Honore de Balzac's Mercadet le Faiseur, his most successful play, opens at the Gymnase in Paris, one year and five months after his death.

1869 Edgar Lee Masters, author of Spoon River Anthology, is born in Garnett, Kans.

I just happen to have a volume of Blake's poems handy, so here's a famous example of his verse.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was they brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?