[R. S. Gwynn]

Andrew, for my generation the pathetic fallacy existed primarily in Disney movies, especially "documentary" ones like "The Vanishing Prairie." I have no idea what "hubristic insipidity" means, and I hope you'll explain.

"The Windhover" and "The Darkling Thrush" may be two sides of the same coin, but they are different sides. Frost's "Come In" is another example of a poet's showing us that nature has no welcome mat out for us.

[Michael F]

I actually interpreted the bird symbolically: I saw it as conscience, I might say. I did not mean to attribute conscience to the bird. Does that preserve me from fallacy? Anyway, it's an idea that sprang unbidden from my imagination -- I have no defense for that.

BTW I love Frost's "Come In". We have wood thrushes at my place, and they have the most beautiful song I know. It's a thrill to hear the first one in May, and sad when I note their absence in August. They are among the first migratory birds to leave. I gave "Come In" to my mother once when I was visiting her; she gets them, too. The poem still hangs above her desk.

[Jennifer Reeser]

"And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."

[Rick Mullin]

The Jorie is still out on this one, Sam.

[Michael F]

LOL Rick!

I could be barking mad on this. I’m firmly convinced we’re all mad in some way -- though perhaps I comfort myself. Anyway, mine is good-natured madness.

Not totally unrelated is this story today on gravitational waves detected from the collision of two neutron stars 130 million years ago. The vids are wild.

[RCL]

From A E Houseman LXII

“[Jorie,] this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ‘tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, ‘tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship ‘tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time.”