GRGR (15): Good & Evil (was Enzian...)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Lorentzen / Nicklaus wrote:
> 
> Peter Petto schrieb:
> 
> > Maybe so, but I'd put TRP and WSB in different categories on one test: I've
> > put my entire Burroughs connection into storage, essentially hiding them
> > from my young daughter.
> >
> > I suppose this act means that I consider the reading of Pynchon a good
> > example for her, but not Burroughs.
> >
> > Matt Groening said in the intro to a book about Robert Crumb: "we used to
> > hide our comics from our parents, now we hide them from our children."
> 
>    Well, you really name a problem here. In 4 years my daughter will be able to
>    read, & we're living in a 3-room-flat. Where to put all these erotica & drug
>    literature?! Maybe I'll have to get myself a poison-cupboard or something.
>    But then this is so phony ...
>                                  Helpless, KFL


Thus children do make cowards of us all







		Once more the storm is howling, and half hid 
                        Under this cradle-hood and coverlid 
                       My child sleeps on. There is no
obstacle 
                        But Gregory's wood and one bare hill 
                    Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling
wind. 
                         Bred on the Atlantic, can be
stayed; 
                      And for an hour I have walked and
prayed 
                     Because of the great gloom that is in
my mind.

                 I have walked and prayed for this young
child an hour 
                    And heard the sea-wind scream upon the
tower, 
                    And under the arches of the bridge, and
scream 
                        In the elms above the flooded
stream; 
                           Imagining in excited reverie 
                          That the future years had come, 
                            Dancing to a frenzied drum, 
                      Out of the murderous innocence of the
sea.

                        May she be granted beauty and yet
not 
                      Beauty to make a stranger's eye
distraught, 
                       Or hers before a looking-glass, for
such, 
                          Being made beautiful overmuch, 
                          Consider beauty a sufficient end, 
                          Lose natural kindness and maybe 
                           The heart-revealing intimacy 
                      That chooses right, and never find a
friend.

                      Helen being chosen found life flat and
dull 
                       And later had much trouble from a
fool, 
                   While that great Queen, that rose out of
the spray, 
                        Being fatherless could have her way 
                       Yet chose a bandy-legged smith for
man. 
                           It's certain that fine women eat 
                           A crazy salad with their meat 
                        Whereby the Horn of Plenty is
undone.

                       In courtesy I'd have her chiefly
learned; 
                    Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts
are earned 
                       By those that are not entirely
beautiful; 
                         Yet many, that have played the fool 
                     For beauty's very self, has charm made
wisc. 
                        And many a poor man that has roved, 
                        Loved and thought himself beloved, 
                      From a glad kindness cannot take his
eyes.

                      May she become a flourishing hidden
tree 
                      That all her thoughts may like the
linnet be, 
                      And have no business but dispensing
round 
                           Their magnanimities of sound, 
                        Nor but in merriment begin a chase, 
                          Nor but in merriment a quarrel. 
                        O may she live like some green
laurel 
                         Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

                    My mind, because the minds that I have
loved, 
                       The sort of beauty that I have
approved, 
                        Prosper but little, has dried up of
late, 
                        Yet knows that to be choked with
hate 
                        May well be of all evil chances
chief. 
                           If there's no hatred in a mind 
                        Can never tear the linnet from the
leaf.

                         An intellectual hatred is the
worst, 
                       So let her think opinions are
accursed. 
                      Have I not seen the loveliest woman
born 
                         Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, 
                          Because of her opinionated mind 
                          Barter that horn and every good 
                            By quiet natures understood 
                       For an old bellows full of angry
wind?

                      Considering that, all hatred driven
hence, 
                        The soul recovers radical innocence 
                      And learns at last that it is
self-delighting, 
                          Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, 
                     And that its own sweet will is Heaven's
will; 
                       She can, though every face should
scowl 
                          And every windy quarter howl 
                        Or every bellows burst, be happy
still.

                     And may her bridegroom bring her to a
house 
                       Where all's accustomed, ceremonious; 
                       For arrogance and hatred are the
wares 
                           Peddled in the thoroughfares. 
                        How but in custom and in ceremony 
                          Are innocence and beauty born? 
                        Ceremony's a name for the rich horn, 
                       And custom for the spreading laurel
tree.

                              William Butler Yeats