Thursday, May 24, 2012

Emily Dickinson's "In a Library"

A PRECIOUS, mouldering pleasure ’t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take, 5
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold 10
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty, 15
And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before, 20

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true:
He lived where dreams were born.

His presence is enchantment, 25
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.

The Importance of Reading Earnest

You'll find the list of classics for our 2012-2013 season down the left side of this blog. Later this year, we'll make a selection of the Orwell and Dickinson titles we'll be discussing and post it here. If you have any suggestions for titles you would like to have discussed, feel free to post a comment here.

We're tentatively planning to show a movie of "The Importance of Being Earnest." In that case, we'll begin the discussion an hour or so early. Check back for more details!