Counting My Blessings

still no Internet access at home

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:12:36 GMT

Bookshelf in new apartment is finished, pictures when ready.

Small cat howled all night long again last night. She didn't seem unhappy-- just liked the sound of her own voice.

If she continues with night opera, I'm gonna bake me some kitty cat cakes.

I knew the bride when she used to rock and roll.

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:42:35 GMT

Some various wedding shots from friends.

Photo by nikkyb.
Featuring me and spidertangle
Taken on the balcony of our new house on Saturday.

These were taken by abitblue, mostly from Saturday.

after the wedding ceremony on Friday. Rice in our hair.

church in Hilvarenbeek

the flowers done by the wonderful bezigebij in our new house. I love delphiniums.

Saturday wedding cake from De Taart van m'n Tante. It was delicious.

friends watching the cake cutting.

spidertangle and last_girl_guide

friends and family-- you can see the wall along the stairs that will eventually be wallpapered

friends on our balcony

pragmartist giving a wonderful speech. :) (and b. our wedding photographer in frame.)

coco_keesses, bezigebij and T.-- three wonderful women who helped us enormously.

in what will eventually be our study

flowers again by bezigebij, this time on Friday outside the restaurant for the lunch.

very quick update

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:32:48 GMT

Still sleeping in Delft as B. developed a terrible stomach flu and we're not yet organized enough to be sick in the new apartment. All social and work plans are consequently cancelled as I've got to deal with all the house stuff myself. My throat was swollen and sore yesterday, but has resolved itself into an irritating little cold.

PTT Post refuses to deliver mail to our new apartment, which is a *huge* problem since all the addresses were switched as of Monday. We're trying to figure out why-- whether they don't think that it exists or whether they don't find it safe to approach.

Same problem with the cable company. I've now had three polite people explain to me that nobody lives at that address yet. Neighbors who have moved in are very pissy about the problem, as you may imagine.

All our stuff got moved in safely on Monday. V. lucky that I did some research about the only possible way for them to park and get in the building. Apparently one of the neighbors had the moving company pull up, look at the situation and refuse to deliver their belongings. So I'm really glad that we're already in. Our moving guys couldn't fit the couch in the elevator and so had to carry it up six flights of stairs and they were absolutely *not* amused. I'm assuming that our bill will exceed the estimate as a result.

coco_keesses and S. are building our bookcases as we speak. The trim guy comes back Friday to finish our plinths. Someone is coming today to saw the bottom off our doors (they were cut too long for us to put in a floor and still have them close.)

House survived the party on Saturday just fine, although both my phone and my ipod walked away, presumably by drunken mistake. The phone was returned the next day by a shamefaced friend and I'm hoping that the same will be true of the iPod. At one point there were quite a few iPods out and people playing dueling iPod DJ and I guess that's when it disappeared (we put our main party music selection on the iPod). Also, somehow missed that one of our guests was drunk enough to find it a good idea to toilet paper the neighbors' railings, so I cleaned that up on Sunday. Champagne goes down like soda pop, but is not. Lesson learned.

White van man comes on Saturday morning to relocate our Delft stuff to Amsterdam. Woo-hoo. After that will have no home Internet connection for several weeks while the utility companies figure out that we exist.

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:34:52 GMT

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bartwe/3642610031/

Reader, I married him.

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:33:39 GMT

pictures, etc. to follow once we're safely in at the new house.

"with much love"

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:15:42 GMT

With much love and many thanks again for a lovely week in Paris!

love, Emily x

(found in Amsterdam close to the Ij. I've altered the image so that email, full name, and full address aren't visible. Dr. Google informs me that the note writer is a fairly well known classical musician.)

Sunday Salon: Writers that I Read in Waves (City of Glass, Paul Auster)

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:44:00 GMT

(Yes, my first Sunday Salon post in several months. I am distractable.)

Some years ago, I burned myself out on Auster. I read one book, Moon Palace and then I started reading his work compulsively-- ripping through everything that I could find. It was sort of like eating nothing but peanut butter sandwiches for three months. Very satisfying, but quite difficult to look at the jar after that. And then I left him alone. I ignored newly released books. I wanted nothing more to do with the man.

Then two years ago, someone gave me The Brooklyn Follies right after it came out. I sighed, but read it. I liked it a lot more than most of the critics and fans. I was back on the slippery slope.

Then this year I picked up and read a copy of his collected prose. And I was doomed. I've started reading everything that I can get my hands on. And re-reading.

The New York Trilogy was one of the first things that I read by Auster, and one of the most dearly beloved. Rereading City of Glass was an interesting experience. I wondered whether I would find the same things moving, whether I would still like it as much. I knew that my reading experience would be affected by Auster discussing why he had written the book in his collected prose.

In the end, I found that my own experience of grief/tragedy deepened my connection with Quinn. His need to find threads in the seemingly random is something that I understand better now-- it added some holdfasts to the text that I had lacked before.

It remains a great book.

hy read it if you haven't already? Detectives, writers, identities, loss, intrigue, mistakes, death, sex and consequences. (Putting these things in a line gives the wrong impression, but read it all the same.)

I'm curious whether I'll burn myself out again on Auster a second time.

Any writers who you read in waves? What happened to you when and if you went back a second time?

Later perhaps I will do something else. After I am done being a poet. Sooner or later I will run out of words, you see. Everyone has just so many words inside him. And then where will I be? I think I would like to be a fireman after that. And after that a doctor. It makes no difference. The last thing I will be is a high-wire walker. When I am very old and have at last learned how to walk like other people. Then I will dance on the wire, and people will be amazed. Even little children. That is what I would like. To dance on the wire until I die.
pg. 31-32

And then, most important of all: to remember who I am. To remember who I am supposed to be. I do not think this is a game. On the other hand, nothing is clear. For example: who are you? And if you think you know, why do you keep lying about it? I have no answer. All I can say is this: listen to me. My name is Paul Auster. That is not my real name.
pg.66

Officer with a Laughing Girl, Vermeer

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 09:16:10 GMT

The garden of dolls.

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:22:26 GMT

found in Amsterdam.

Party favors

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:01:39 GMT

these

were found just above

these

close to student housing in Amsterdam.

A blast from the past.

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:08:05 GMT

A few pictures from Central Park, NYC.

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:57:29 GMT

My sister and I both really enjoyed walking in the park.

Book 45. Hotel for Dogs, Lois Duncan

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:34:08 GMT

I must have read and reread this book 500 times as a child. I brought this back with me to the Netherlands after my father died, and on a whim picked it up to reread again now. (Which I how I discovered that I had actually inadvertently stolen my sister's copy-- sorry Sis!) Since there is a recent film about the book, it seemed timely to read.

Still a wonderful book-- at least if only for the nostalgia. Some good lessons in there about kindness to animals and bullying. I found that I remembered it nearly line-for-line.

Some surprises for me:

I didn't realize until picking this up again that the author was Lois Duncan-- whose work I knew mostly for her melodramatic YA novels. I would not have guessed that it had the same author as Daughters of Eve.

Second, buyer beware of the recent editions. Someone has inexplicably changed the text-- including pointlessly changing the characters names? Apparently this was to make the book fit the names used in the film. Badly played. Look for the original.

Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:33:25 GMT

big thanks to oursin for reminding me of how much I love this song. :)

new house update

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:55:39 GMT

Plasterers are finishing up today, and that part already looks much better. The company we're working with seems neat and competent, which frightens us.

The building company has fixed the windows so they now open, but now one of them doesn't close.

We bought tiles from a very inexpensive company, but then they wouldn't deliver them to our house-- only to the building basement. So we needed help to carry them up to our apartment. That was the lift to the 5th floor, and then by hand to the 6th. So thank you to the people (thisc0rrosion and others) who helped us move 1500 kilos of basalt to the 6th floor. :)

Moving appears that it's going to be loads of fun. Apparently moving trucks will be too heavy to use the ramp into our parking garage, and the city doesn't easily give permits to park on the street outside. Sigh.

Book 44. Exit Music, Ian Rankin

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:11:54 GMT

There was plenty to like about this book-- not the least of which is Rankin apparently making fun of the idea that all murders these days have to be puffed up into conspiracies, but it still isn't the strongest in the series. Why not? The pacing is a little bit odd-- I found it difficult to hold attention and I always give attention to Rebus books. Also possibly a few too many red herrings. Readers new to Rebus should not begin here-- don't think that it is really representative.

This book is interesting for fans, of course, as it may be the last Rebus book. (I confess that I have my doubts because of a hint or two dropped in the story.) I kind of hope not myself, but we'll see.

Book 43. John Brown Abolitionist, David S. Reynolds

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:42:10 GMT

The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights

Complicating Brown's legacy even further is the terrorism of recent times. The historian David W. Blight asks, “Can John Brown remain an authentic American hero in an age of Timothy McVeigh, Usama Bin Laden, and the bombers of abortion clinics?”
pg. 500

With the recent murder of George Tiller, bleeding Kansas takes on a whole new meaning. That may seem like an off-topic remark, but it is the notion of the "good terrorist" that is at the heart of the John Brown story, and the legacy that he left is not at all uncomplicated.

One of the things that I like best about this biography by Reynolds is that he does not attempt to sidestep the nature of Brown's life and deeds. Instead, he looks openly at the questions of criminal violence, morality, puritanism and madness that drove the man and his sons. While I feel that Reynolds has a difficult time not admiring Brown, he rarely stoops to excuse him. There is one important exception to this-- at the end of the book while Reynolds is discussing the legacy, he glosses over the question of other kinds of American moral terrorists. He tries to make the point that slavery was fundamentally different than taxes or abortion as an issue to be addressed-- that there was something so unique about the social problem slavery presented that nearly no option except violence was open. I found that too easy. The problem at the heart of Harpers Ferry is that while the modern reader can sympathize with the frustration and rage that lay behind the actions of that day, I think that it is very difficult to find what Brown did legitimate without allowing other would-be good terrorists recourse to the same methods.

It is an interesting problem. To be frank, I do not know where I stand on its points. But it adds depth to what would otherwise be another exhaustive civil war biography, and makes the book something really special.

I did not go into reading John Brown Abolitionist with much knowledge of its subject. In fact, I would hazard a guess that having sung "John Brown's Baby" as a child was as close as I got to ever really thinking about the man. All the same, I did not find the history confusing or the text too exhaustive. It is a long book, but I got value from the whole length.

I have to also say that normally I have very little patience for history as written by literature professors, but in this case Reynold's background suits the subject well. John Brown, phenomenon, is as much about the symbol as the man himself and it is in literature that the symbol was so powerfully created. One of my favorite aspects of the book was considering how writers like Alcott, Emerson and Thoreau picked up Brown as an icon.

Highly recommended. I'm still thinking about it, even several weeks after I closed the covers.

Like the arch-Purital Cromwell before him, he came to have a notably divided reputation, with many seeing him as a bloodthirsty terrorist and others viewing him as a saintly liberator. The truth is that, like Cromwell, he was both of those things. He was a terrorist because of his own interpretation of Puritan beliefs. Far from enforcing tame conformity, Puritanism unleashed militant individualism and warfare against institutions.
pg. 19

Brown had a brainstorm-- not a good thing for an entrepreneur with his spotty track record to have during a major economic depression.
pg. 70

Complicating Brown's legacy even further is the terrorism of recent times. The historian David W. Blight asks, “Can John Brown remain an authentic American hero in an age of Timothy McVeigh, Usama Bin Laden, and the bombers of abortion clinics?”
pg. 500

*****

Added to my wish list:

Cloudsplitter: A Novel, Russell Banks
The Saints Everlasting Rest, Richard Baxter
The Puritan Origins of the American Self, Sacvan Bercovitch
Emerson, Lawrence Buell
Letters of Emily Dickinson
The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois
The Religious Affections, Jonathan Edwards
The Trials of Anthony Burns: Freedom and Slavery in Emersons Boston, Albert J. von Frank
Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory, Kenneth S. Greenberg
Autobiography of a Female Slave, Mattie Griffith
The Black Napoleon: Toussaint L'Ouverture Liberator of Haiti, James Jess Hannon
The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Army Life in a Black Regiment: and Other Writings , Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs
A Lydia Maria Child Reader, Carolyn L.Karcher
Life of Amos A. Lawrence, William Lawrence
The Good Terrorist, Doris Lessing
Abraham Lincoln : Speeches and Writings 1832-1858
Life And Correspondence Of Theodore Parker
The Quaker City, Or, the Monks of Monk Hall: A Romance of Philadelphia Life, Mystery, and Crime, George Lippard and David S. Reynolds
Memoir Of The Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy, Who Was Murdered In Defense Of The Liberty Of The Press, Joseph Cammet Lovejoy, Owen Lovejoy, and John Quincy Adams
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, Herman Melville
Raising Holy Hell, Bruce Olds
Denmark Vesey: The Buried Story of America's Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It, David Robertson
A. Bronson Alcott: His Life and Philosophy, Frank B. Sanborn
Louisa May Alcott: A Biography, Madeleine B. Stern
Dred; A Tale Of The Great Dismal Swamp, Together With Anti-Slavery Tales And Papers, And Life In Florida After The War, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Memoir And Letters Of Charles Sumner by Charles Sumner
Meteor of War: The John Brown Story, Zoe Trodd and John Stauffer
Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction, Charles Townshend

Wilders.

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:17:52 GMT

I feel shame and sorrow for the Netherlands today.

They Look At Us, Eli Siegal

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:45:49 GMT

They Look at Us
Martin Luther King
Is with John Brown.
Look up: you'll see them both
Looking down —
Deep and so wide
At us.

The Portent, Herman Melville

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:41:04 GMT

Hanging from the beam,
Slowly swaying (such the law),
Gaunt the shadow on your green,
Shenandoah!
The cut is on the crown
(Lo, John Brown),
And the stabs shall heal no more.

Hidden in the cap
Is the anguish none can draw;
So your future veils its face,
Shenandoah!
But the streaming beard is shown
(Weird John Brown),
The meteor of the war.

Deuteronomy 32

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:18:16 GMT

1 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:

3 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.

6 Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?

7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

8 When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

9 For the LORD's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;

14 Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.

17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

19 And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.

20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.

21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

24 They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

25 The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.

26 I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:

27 Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this.

28 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.

29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!

30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?

31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.

32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:

33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

34 Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?

35 To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

36 For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.

37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,

38 Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.

39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.

41 If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.

42 I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

43 Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.

44 And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun. 45 And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel: 46 And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. 47 For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.

48 And the LORD spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, 49 Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession: 50 And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people: 51 Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of MeribahKadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel. 52 Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.

On the Death of Charles Turner Torrey, James Russell Lowell

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:13:14 GMT

Woe worth the hour when it is crime
To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause,
When all that makes the heart sublime,
The glorious throbs that conquer time,
Are traitors to our cruel laws!

He strove among God's suffering poor
One gleam of brotherhood to send;
The dungeon oped its hungry door
To give the truth one martyr more,
Then shut,--and here behold the end!

O Mother State! when this was done,
No pitying throe thy bosom gave;
Silent thou saw'st the death-shroud spun,
And now thou givest to thy son
The stranger's charity,--a grave.

Must it be thus forever? No!
The hand of God sows not in vain,
Long sleeps the darkling seed below,
The seasons come, and change, and go,
And all the fields are deep with grain.

Although our brother lie asleep,
Man's heart still struggles, still aspires;
His grave shall quiver yet, while deep
Through the brave Bay State's pulses leap
Her ancient energies and fires.

When hours like this the senses' gush
Have stilled, and left the spirit room,
It hears amid the eternal hush
The swooping pinions' dreadful rush,
That bring the vengeance and the doom;--

Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends
What rivets man to man apart,--
God doth not so bring round his ends,
But waits the ripened time, and sends
His mercy to the oppressor's heart.

Hebrews 13

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:06:25 GMT

(King James Bible)

1 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3 Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body. 4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. 5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.

7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. 8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. 9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein. 10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. 11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. 12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. 13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. 14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. 16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

18 Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly. 19 But I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.

20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

22 And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation: for I have written a letter unto you in few words. 23 Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you. 24 Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you.

25 Grace be with you all. Amen.

After Great Pain, Emily Dickinson

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:01:40 GMT

After great pain, a formal feeling comes—
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs—
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round—
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought—
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone—

This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—