From: Don Armstrong Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:02:48 +0000 (+0000) Subject: * add more long quotes X-Git-Url: https://git.donarmstrong.com/?p=lib.git;a=commitdiff_plain;h=93b2c9816bb46ec331f82f74cdcb520a709721bc * add more long quotes --- diff --git a/signature_stuff/long_quotes.txt b/signature_stuff/long_quotes.txt index 37d949c..e1900fd 100644 --- a/signature_stuff/long_quotes.txt +++ b/signature_stuff/long_quotes.txt @@ -6,4 +6,123 @@ Not wintry leaves nor vernal, Nor days nor things diurnal, Only the sleep eternal In an enternal night." --- Algernon Charles Swinburne "The Garden of Proserpine" + -- Algernon Charles Swinburne "The Garden of Proserpine" +% +In a field +I am the absence +of field. +This is +always the case. +Wherever I am +I am what is missing. + +When I walk +I part the air +and always +the air moves in +to fill the spaces +where my body's been. + +We all have reasons +for moving. +I move +to keep things whole. + -- Mark Strand "Keeping Things Whole" +% +Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you +Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, +And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, +Must ask permission to know it and be known. +The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, +I have made this place around you, +If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here. +No two trees are the same to Raven. +No two branches are the same to Wren. +If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, +You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows +Where you are. You must let it find you. + -- David Wagoner "Lost" +% +There are strange things done in the midnight sun + By the men who moil for gold; +The Arctic trails have their secret tales + That would make your blood run cold; +The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, + But the queerest they ever did see +Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge + I cremated Sam McGee. + +Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. +Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows. +He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; +Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.” + +On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail. +Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail. +If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see; +It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. + +And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, +And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe, +He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess; +And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.” + +Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan: +“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone. +Yet ‘taint being dead--it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains; +So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.” + +A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail; +And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale. +He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee; +And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. + +There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven, +With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given; +It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains, +But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.” + +Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. +In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load. +In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, +Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God! how I loathed the thing. + +And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow; +And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low; +The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in; +And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin. + +Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; +It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.” +And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; +Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.” + +Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire; +Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher; +The flames just soared and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see; +Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee. + +Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so; +And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow. +It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why; +And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. + +I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; +But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near; +I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside. +I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . then the door I opened wide. + +And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; +And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door. +It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm— +Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.” + +There are strange things done in the midnight sun + By the men who moil for gold; +The Arctic trails have their secret tales + That would make your blood run cold; +The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, + But the queerest they ever did see +Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge + I cremated Sam McGee. + -- Robert W. Service "The Cremation of Sam McGee"