Introduction to The Pocket University Guide to Daily Reading
Nothing happened today. I found that hard to believe. The Booklover’s Almanac tells me Joel Chandler published the first “Brer Rabbit” story in the Atlanta Constitution on this date in 1874.
Daily Readings
- Cone’s Ride to the Lady
- Hewlett’s Soldier, Soldier
Helen Gray Cone (1859–1934) was a poet and professor of English literature. She spent her entire career at Hunter College in NYC. You can follow her at All Poetry.
This is sad. Her Ride to the Lady and Other Poems is at PG. It has no downloads.
Maurice Hewlett (1861-1923) was a historical novelist, poet, and essayist. His work is doing much better at PG.
Ride to the Lady "Now since mine even is come at last,— For I have been the sport of steel, And hot life ebbeth from me fast, And I in saddle roll and reel,— Come bind me, bind me on my steed! Of fingering leech I have no need!" The chaplain clasped his mailed knee. "Nor need I more thy whine and thee! No time is left my sins to tell; But look ye bind me, bind me well!" They bound him strong with leathern thong, For the ride to the lady should be long. Day was dying; the poplars fled, Thin as ghosts, on a sky blood-red; Out of the sky the fierce hue fell, And made the streams as the streams of hell. All his thoughts as a river flowed, Flowed aflame as fleet he rode, Onward flowed to her abode, Ceased at her feet, mirrored her face. (Viewless Death apace, apace, Rode behind him in that race.)
The Booklover’s Almanac. Robert Brittain, ed. Frederic C. Beil, Publisher, New York. 1986. 1st 1971.
