( via / via )

"I think most philosophers aren’t aware of just how rapidly the discipline of classics is imploding these days."

      "II: When Israel out of Egypt Came

When Israel out of Egypt came
   Safe in the sea they trod;
By day in cloud, by night in flame,
   Went on before them God.

He brought them with a stretched out hand
   Dry-footed through the foam,
Past sword and famine, rock and sand,
   Lust and rebellion, home.

I never over Horeb heard
   The blast of advent blow;
No fire-faced prophet brought me word
   Which way behoved me go.

Ascended is the cloudy flame,
   The mount of thunder dumb;
The tokens that to Israel came,
   To me they have not come.

I see the country far away
   Where I shall never stand;
The heart goes where no footstep may
   Into the promised land.

The realm I look upon and die
   Another man will own;
He shall attain the heaven that I
   Perish and have not known.

But I will go where they are hid
   That never were begot,
To my inheritance amid
   The nation that is not.

Where mixed with me the sandstorms drift,
   And nerve and heart and brain
Are ashes for the air to lift,
   And lightly shower again."

--A E Housman

"Crossword sonnets, infected sonnets, golden spades, stanzas copped from John Donne—there is plenty of formal innovation and imitation to be found in this month’s roundup.."

"A cat is the boundary between her and me..." --Eshleman & Barcía's Vallejo

Little Fugue in G Minor.