Fun_People Archive
22 Aug
LIT BITS V3 #236

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 100 18:34:58 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: LIT BITS V3 #236

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Excerpted-from: LITERARY CALENDAR V3 #236
From: ptervin@pent.yasuda-u.ac.jp

Today is Wednesday, 23 August 2000; on this day,

201 years ago (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."

151 years ago (1849),

     William Ernest Henley, British poet, critic, and editor, is born in
     Gloucestershire. A childhood disease will lead to the amputation of
     one foot and inspire him to began writing free-verse about hospital
     life that will establish his reputation. His most popular poem will
     be "Invictus" (1875), which concludes with the lines, "I am the master
     of my fate;/I am the captain of my soul."

149 years ago (1851),

     Honore de Balzac's _Mercadet le Faiseur_, his most successful play,
     opens at the Gymnase in Paris, one year and five days after his death.

131 years ago (1869),

     Edgar Lee Masters, author of _Spoon River Anthology_, is born in
     Garnett, Kansas.

Today's poem:

             Between the Dusk of a Summer Night

     Between the dusk of a summer night
       And the dawn of a summer day,
     We caught at a mood as it passed in flight,
       And we bade it stoop and stay.
     And what with the dawn of night began
       With the dusk of day was done;
     For that is the way of woman and man,
       When a hazard has made them one.

     Arc upon arc, from shade to shine,
       The World went thundering free;
     And what was his errand but hers and mine --
       The lords of him, I and she?
     O, it's die we must, but it's live we can,
       And the marvel of earth and sun
     Is all for the joy of woman and man
       And the longing that makes them one.

                                              William Henley
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