Love bade me…
One of the most beautiful English poems, of great simplicity and generosity, by George Herbert. Much of his poetry is...
Gun-blue swingle
This quite literally striking triologism is from a poem by Robert Lowell (1917-77), which I discovered in a commentary by...
A poet’s prayer
In fact, a prayer for any writer. Having just read John Drury's marvelous appreciation of George Herbert's life and his...
As dogs in summer
Desperate people, condemned to eternal infernal cruelties, are likened to dogs failing to fight off the tiny tormenting assaults of...
Scum-skinned tide
Something alarmingly contemporary about this polluted surface in Dante's Inferno, especially when he discerns, through the miasma, dead souls fleeing.
...
Too much information
Dante anticipated the age in which we are drowned in facts, fake and otherwise. Note his observation of our being...
Yours to win, not lose
These racing monosyllables have the pace and certainty of one who runs, and lives, as if he can only win. I...
Learning to write
How do you learn to write? My belief is that if fine writing comes from you, mostly it is due to...
Frayed by sin
A surprising one, this, as sin is often presented, nowadays, as socially acceptable, even desirable 'vice' - something naughty-but-nice, essentially...
Ill guidance, bad leadership
A strikingly modern sounding comment by Dante, resonating painfully when the evening news seems to be forever picking apart the...
As it sounded, so it looked
In the preface to his marvelous translation of Dante, Clive James mentions the poet's pithiness. I can't judge it in...
Bat-haunted cave
In general, I would run a mile from anything bat-haunted - apparently random, erratic flight patterns bring out some primeval...
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