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- Thread starter LionJim
- Start date
The magical mystery tour is waiting to take me away. 
Yeats, again. In his volume "The Tower," he has a series of seven poems he called Meditations in Time of Civil War; this poem is #6 in this series. Yeats lived through the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War and his poems from this time can be dark and despairing. He's not the most cheerful poet, but whatever. I especially feel the last stanza of this poem.
The Stare's Nest by My Window
The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned.
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war:
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
The Stare's Nest by My Window
The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned.
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war:
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
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For those here familiar with noted author Dennis Lehane, his new book Small Mercies is excellent... on par with Mystic River.
I went to high school with Dennis, both in same graduating class.
If you want a dark read of what it was like in South Boston in 1974 when they began desegregation (busing) this is your book.
I went to high school with Dennis, both in same graduating class.
If you want a dark read of what it was like in South Boston in 1974 when they began desegregation (busing) this is your book.
Reacher Better Off Dead
Before that a Kay Scarpetta? book. Not sure why I read her books they always suck
Before that a Kay Scarpetta? book. Not sure why I read her books they always suck
The Rediscovery of America....Ned BlackhawkJust finished:
I read it again after twenty years and was extremely impressed by how it holds up. Weiner is a great voice for scientists; he did a fantastic job with the earlier The Beak of the Finch.
Now reading, another re-read. I'm really digging this.
Differ We Must...Steve Inskeep
