 Quotes
Friday, December 22nd, 2000 Saint Nicholas,might I, if you can find it, be givena chameleon with tail that curls like a watch spring; and vertical on the body--including the face--pale tiger-stripes, about seven; (the melanin in the skin having been shaded from the sun by thin bars; the spinal dome beaded along the ridge as if it were platinum)? If you can find no striped chameleon, might I have a dress or suit-- I guess you have heard of it--of quiviut? and to wear wtih it, a taslon shirt, the drip-dry fruit of research second to none; sewn, I hope, by Excello; as for buttons to keep down the collar-points, no. The shirt could be white-- and be "worn before six," either in daylight or at night. But don't give me, if I can't have the dress, a trip to Greenland, or grim trip to the moon. The moon should come here. Let him make the trip down, spread on my dark floor some dim marvel, and if a success that I stoop to pick up and wear, I could ask nothing more. A thing yet more rare, though, and different, would be this: Hans von Marées' St. Hubert, kneeling with head bent, erect--in velvet and tense with restraint-- hand hanging down: the horse, free. Not the original, of course. Give me a postcard of the scene--huntsman and divinity-- hunt-mad Hubert startled into a saint by a stag with a Figure entwined. But why tell you what you must have divined? Saint Nicholas, O Santa Claus, would it not be the most prized gift that ever was?
Marianne Moore, Complete Poems, 1967, MacMillan Publishing reprint 1981. Bonus Poem...
by Robert Frost (1874-1963)The city had withdrawn into itselfAnd left at last the country to the country; When between whirls of snow not come to lie And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, Yet did in country fashion in that there He say and waited till he drew us out A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was. He proved to be the city come again To look for something it had left behind And could not do without and keep its Christmas. He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; My woods--the young fir balsams like a place Where houses all are churches and have spires. I hadn't thought of them as Christmas trees. I doubt if I was tempted for a moment To sell them off their feet to go in cars And leave the slope behind the house all bare, Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon. I'd hate to have them know it if I was. Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees except As others hold theirs or refuse for them, Beyond the time of profitable growth, The trial by market everything must come to. I dallied so much with the thought of selling. Then whether from mistaken courtesy And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said, "There aren't enough to be worth while." "I could soon tell how many they would cut, You let me look them over. "You could look. But don't expect I'm going to let you have them." Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close That lop each other of boughs, but not a few Quite solitary and having equal boughs All round and round. The latter he nodded "Yes" to, Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one, With a buyer's moderation, "That would do." I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so. We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed voer, and came down on the north. He said, "A thousand." "A thousand Christmas trees!--at what apiece?" He felt some need of softening that to me: "A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars." Then I was certain I had never meant To let him have them. Never show surprise! But thirty dollars seemed so small beside The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents (For that was all they figured out to apiece), Three cents so small beside the dollar friends I should be writing to within the hour Would pay for good trees like those, Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools Could hang enough on to pick off enough. A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had! Worth three cents more to give away than sell As may be shown by a simple calculation. Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter. I can't help wishing I could send you one, In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas. From THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST, edited by Edward Connery Lathem, Copyright 1944, 1951 by Robert Frost, Copyright 1916, 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, Inc. Recent Quotes... |
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