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Why did my parents send me to the schools That I with knowledge might enrich my mind? Since the desire to know first made men fools, And did corrupt the root of all mankind. For when God's hand had written in the hearts Of the first parents all the rules of good, So that their skill infused did pass all arts That ever were, before or since the flood, And when their reason's eye was sharp and clear, And, as an eagle can behold the sun, Could have approached th'eternal light as near As the intellectual angels could have done, Even then to them the spirit of lies suggests That they were blind, because they saw not ill, And breathes into their incorrupted breasts A curious wish, which did corrupt their will. For that same ill they straight desired to know; Which ill, being nought but a defect of good, And all God's works the devil could not show While man their lord in his perfection stood. So that themselves were first to do the ill, Ere they thereof the knowledge could attain; Like him that knew not poison's power to kill, Until, by tasting it, himself was slain. Even so by tasting of that fruit forbid, Where they sought knowledge, they did error find; Ill they desired to know, and ill they did, And to give passion eyes, made reason blind. For then their minds did first in passion see Those wretched shapes of misery and woe, Of nakedness, of shame, of poverty, Which then their own experience made them know. But then grew reason dark, that she no more Could the fair forms of good and truth discern; Bats they became, that eagles were before, And this they got by their desire to learn. But we, their wretched offspring, what do we? Do not we still taste of the fruit forbid, Whiles with fond fruitless curiosity In books profane we seek for knowledge hid? What is this knowledge but the sky-stolen fire For which the thief still chained in ice doth sit, And which the poor rude satyr did admire, And needs would kiss, but burnt his lips with it. What is it but the cloud of empty rain, Which when Jove's guest embraced, he monsters got? Or the false pails which oft being filled with pain, Received the water, but retained it not? Shortly, what is it but the fiery coach Which the youth sought, and sought his death withal? Or the boy's wings, which when he did approach The sun's hot beams, did melt and let him fall? And yet, alas, when all our lamps are burned, Our bodies waste, and our spirits spent, When we have all the learned volumes turned, Which yield men's wits both help and ornament, What can we know, or what can we discern, When error chokes the windows of the mind, The diverse forms of things, how can we learn, That have been ever from our birthday blind? When reason's lamp, which like the sun in sky, Throughout man's little world her beams did spread, Is now become a sparkle which doth lie Under the ashes, half extinct and dead; How can we hope that through the eye and ear This dying sparkle, in this cloudy place, Can recollect these beams of knowledge clear, Which were infused in the first minds by grace? So might the heir whose father hath in play Wasted a thousand pound of ancient rent, By painful earning of a groat a day Hope to restore the patrimony spent. The wits that dived most deep and soared most high, Seeking man's powers, have found his weakness such; Skill comes so slow and life so fast doth fly, We learn so little and forget so much. For this the wisest of all mortal men Said, He knew nought but that he nought did know; And the great mocking master mocked not then, When he said, Truth was buried deep below. For how may we to others' things attain, When none of us his own soul understands? For which the devil mocks our curious brain, When, Know thyself, his oracle commands. For why should we the busy soul believe, When boldly she concludes of that and this; When of herself she can no judgment give, Nor how, nor whence, nor where, nor what she is? All things without, which round about we see, We seek to know, and how therewith to do; But that whereby we reason, live, and be, Within ourselves we strangers are thereto. We seek to know the moving of each sphere, And the strange cause of th'ebbs and floods of Nile; But of that clock within our breasts we bear, The subtle motions we forget the while. We that acquaint ourselves with every zone, And pass both tropics and behold the poles, When we come home, are to ourselves unknown, And unacquainted still with our own souls. We study speech, but others we persuade; We leech-craft learn, but others cure with it; We interpret laws, which other men have made, But read not those which in our hearts are writ. Is it because the mind is like the eye, Through which it gathers knowledge by degrees-- Whose rays reflect not, but spread outwardly-- Not seeing itself when other things it sees? No, doubtless, for the mind can backward cast Upon herself her understanding light; But she is so corrupt and so defaced, As her own image doth herself affright. As in the fable of the lady fair, Which for her lust was turned into a cow: When thirsty to a stream she did repair, And saw herself transformed, she wist not how, At first she startles, then she stands amazed, At last with terror she from thence doth fly, And loathes the wat'ry glass wherein she gazed, And shuns it still, though she for thirst do die. Even so man's soul, which did God's image bear, And was at first fair, good, and spotless pure, Since with her sins her beauties blotted were, Doth of all sights her own sight least endure. For even at first reflection she espies Such strange chimeras and such monsters there, Such toys, such antics, and such vanities, As she retires and shrinks for shame and fear. And as the man loves least at home to be, That hath a sluttish house haunted with sprites, So she, impatient her own faults to see, Turns from herself and in strange things delights. For this, few know themselves; for merchants broke View their estate with discontent and pain, And seas are troubled when they do revoke Their flowing waves into themselves again. And while the face of outward things we find Pleasing and fair, agreeable and sweet, These things transport and carry out the mind, That with herself herself can never meet. Yet if affliction once her wars begin, And threat the feebler sense with sword and fire, The mind contracts herself and shrinketh in, And to herself she gladly doth retire, As spiders touched seek their webs' inmost part, As bees in storms unto their hives return, As blood in danger gathers to the heart, As men seek towns when foes the country burn. If aught can teach us aught, affliction's looks, Making us look into ourselves so near, Teach us to know ourselves beyond all books, Or all the learned schools that ever were. This mistress lately plucked me by the ear, And many a golden lesson hath me taught; Hath made my senses quick and reason clear, Reformed my will and rectified my thought. So do the winds and thunders cleanse the air; So working lees settle and purge the wine; So lopped and prunëd trees do flourish fair; So doth the fire the drossy gold refine. Neither Minerva nor the learned muse, Nor rules of art, nor precepts of the wise, Could in my brain those beams of skill infuse, As but the glance of this dame's angry eyes. She within lists my ranging mind hath brought, That now beyond myself I list not go; Myself am center of my circling thought, Only myself I study, learn, and know. I know my body's of so frail a kind As force without, fevers within, can kill; I know the heavenly nature of my nind, But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will; I know my soul hath power to know all things, Yet is she blind and ignorant of all; I know I am one of nature's little kings, Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall. I know my life's a pain and but a span, I know my sense is mocked with everything; And to conclude, I know myself a man, Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

An unexpected consequence Of mine (and one that shows how well It really went, in a scary sense) Is at its most perceptible When I happen to observe a nose With the hump of  which my nose is rid (Though not my psyche, you’d suppose) And feel the sighting visited By what a lord might call a kind Of  pity: distant, tinged with scorn... A thing you’d more expect to find In someone to his beauty born.

Remember the 1340s? We were doing a dance called the Catapult. You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade, and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular, the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework. Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon, and at night we would play a game called “Find the Cow.” Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today. Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone. Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room. We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang. These days language seems transparent, a badly broken code. The 1790s will never come again. Childhood was big. People would take walks to the very tops of hills and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking. Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft. We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs. It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead. I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821. Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits. And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment, time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps, or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me recapture the serenity of last month when we picked berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe. Even this morning would be an improvement over the present. I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks. As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past, letting my memory rush over them like water rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream. I was even thinking a little about the future, that place where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine, a dance whose name we can only guess.

Les morts C’est sous terre; Ça n’en sort Guère. LAFORGUE Our diaries squatted, toad-like, On dark closet ledges. Forget-me-not and thistle Decalcomaned the pages. But where, where are they now, All the sad squalors Of those between-wars parlors?— Cut flowers; and the sunlight spilt like soda On torporous rugs; the photo Albums all outspread ... The dead Don’t get around much anymore.

The black water. Lights dotting the entire perimeter. Their shaky reflections. The dark tree line. The plap-plapping of water around the pier. Creaking boats. The creaking pier. Voices in conversation, in discussion—two men, adults—serious inflections (the words themselves just out of reach). A rusty screen-door spring, then the door swinging shut. Footsteps on a porch, the scrape of a wooden chair. Footsteps shuffling through sand, animated youthful voices (how many?)— distinct, disappearing. A sudden guffaw; some giggles; a woman’s—no, a young girl’s—sarcastic reply; someone’s assertion; a high-pitched male cackle. Somewhere else a child laughing. Bug-zappers. Tires whirring along a pavement... not stopping ... receding. Shadows from passing headlights. A cat’s eyes caught in a headlight. No moon. Connect-the-dot constellations filling the black sky—the ladle of the Big Dipper not quite directly overhead. The radio tower across the lake, signaling. Muffled quacking near the shore; a frog belching; crickets, cicadas, katydids, etc.—their relentless sexual messages. A sudden gust of wind. Branches brushing against each other—pine, beech. A fiberglass hull tapping against the dock. A sudden chill. The smell of smoke, woodstove fires. A light going out. A dog barking; then more barking from another part of the lake. A burst of quiet laughter. Someone in the distance calling someone too loud. Steps on a creaking porch. A screen-door spring, the door banging shut. Another light going out (you must have just undressed for bed). My bare feet on the splintery pier turning away from the water.

Scientific inquiry, seen in a very broad perspective may see Foot 1957, also Wetermarck 1906, Ch. XIII To man (sic) the world is twofold, in accordance with that witness is now or in the future It wasn't until the waitress brought her Benedictine and she Villandry, "Les Douves" par Azay le Rideau mine. Yours, CYNTHIA. Not a building, this earth, not a cage, The artist: disciple, abundant, multiple, restless a forgery: Opus loannes Bellini We named you I thought the earth is possible I could not tell to make live and conscious history in common and wake you find yourself among and wake up deep in the fruit Did you get the money we sent? I smell fire AT FULL VOLUME. STAGE DARK] 1. Russia, 1927 God, say your prayers. You were begotten in a vague war sidelong into your brain. In Letter Three & Four (as earlier) the narrator is North Dakota Portugal Moorhead, Minnesota The lights go down, the curtain opens: the first thing we gun, Veronica wrote, the end. 'Wittgenstein' Tomorrow she would be in America. Over forty years ago a tense, cunningly moving tale by the Hunga- Then he moved on and I went close behind. Interviewers: What drew a woman from Ohio to study in Tübingen? American Readers with this issue former subscribers to Marxist Perspectives The shadow of the coup continues to hover over Spain In the ordinary way of summer girls were still singing like a saguaro cactus from which any desert wayfarer can draw as is Mr. Fox, but in literature Twenty five years have gone by Ya se dijeron las cosas mas oscuras The most obscure things have already been said

A not admitting of the wound Until it grew so wide That all my Life had entered it And there were troughs beside - A closing of the simple lid that opened to the sun Until the tender Carpenter Perpetual nail it down -

As soon as I step into the tunnel that will take me under the river I need to cross to get to the city my brain shuts down.  No signal gets through and the question remains how do I know? With a brain well emptied, and a head a vacuum of nothing, everything I’ve ever known goes quietly absent.  As still and as quiet as a house abandoned or a mouth wide open in a painting. As soon as I step out of the tunnel scientists squabble about when we should abandon the earth for some other place.  I duck straight back into the tunnel in order to disrupt the signal. In the tunnel's shelter there is nothing in my head, it's empty enough For the origins of the universe to begin.  A frightening thing interrupted by my backing back out of the tunnel just in time. In the light of day what's on my mind turns out to be your lifespan. Next to the tunnel is the only safe place to be.  It is the only place where it's certain I’ll not all day not need to be crying and weeping to go on. Which draws me directly back into the tunnel to interrupt the signal. It takes a little while for my mind to stop trembling.

Half of the Beatles have fallen and half are yet to fall. Keith Moon has set. Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet. Children sing for Alex Chilton. Whitney Houston’s left the Hilton. Hendrix, Guru, Bonham, Janis. They have a tendency to vanish. Bolan, Bell, and Boon by car. How I wonder where they are. Hell is now Jeff Hanneman’s. Adam Yauch and three Ramones. [This space held in reserve for Zimmerman and Osterberg, for Bruce and Neil and Keith, that sere and yellow leaf.] Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, Stinson, Sterling, Otis Redding. Johnny Thunders and Joe Strummer, Ronnie Dio, Donna Summer. Randy Rhoads and Kurt Cobain, Patsy Cline and Ronnie Lane. Poly Styrene, Teena Marie. Timor mortis conturbat me.

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.... They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. — Donald Trump, June 16, 2015 They woke him up by pissing in his face. He opened his mouth to scream in Spanish, so his mouth became a urinal at the ballpark. Scott and Steve: the Leader brothers, celebrating a night at Fenway, where the Sox beat the Indians and a rookie named Rodríguez spun the seams on his changeup to hypnotize the Tribe. Later that night, Steve urinated on the door of his cell, and Scott told the cops why they did it:Donald Trump was right. All these illegals need to be deported. He was a Mexican in a sleeping bag outside JFK station on a night in August, so they called him a wetback and emptied their bladders in his hair. In court, the lawyers spoke his name:Guillermo Rodríguez, immigrant with papers, crop-picker in the fields, trader of bottles and cans collected in his cart. Two strangers squashed the cartilage in his nose like a can drained of beer. In dreams, he would remember the shoes digging into his ribcage, the pole raked repeatedly across his cheekbones and upraised knuckles, the high-five over his body. Donald Trump was right, said Scott. And Trump said:The people that are following me are very passionate