( via / via )

Yet Another Evening.

"Sonnet XXVI

Around this rod my writhing self might twist —
And fold the splendor of its poisoned mesh,
Its spangled scales of gold and amethyst.
The brilliant convolutions of the flesh.
Not yet my sinuous coil from the ground
Can lift its lust — save by this one escape.
This fearful straightness I may wreathe around
As close as binds the skin upon the grape.
Now upward springs the fierce determined power.
And its sharp brightness shoots my sensuous nerves.
With godlike speed in this unearthly hour
I break in splendor all my glittering curves.
Now by this straightness, I lay hold on God
Who in His Town set up His Holy Rod."

--Anna Hempstead Branch (via Olchar Lindsann on Fb)

"He is sitting in his cabin trying to read Spinoza's Ethics, when he hears some critters scuttling outdoors and he can't resist the urge to grab his rifle and go shooting at them, hoping to get some more squirrel broth to carry with him in a portable jug when he ventures into St. Louis to meet his peers."

"Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant." --Baron d'Holbach

System of Nature.