Folks, I'm up hunting from 4 AM on, and too pooped to Lariat. But let me briefly join in with my favorite literary allusion, which MacNeice gave us in Sunlight on the Garden:
Sunlight on the garden
hardens and grows cold.
We cannot cage the minute
within its nets of gold.
When all is told,
We cannot beg for pardon.
Our freedom as free lances
advances toward its end.
The earth compels; upon it
sonnets and birds descend,
and soon, my friend,
we shall have no time for dances.
The sky was good for flying,
defying the iron bells
and every evil iron
siren and what it tells.
The earth compels:
We are dying, Egypt, dying
and not expecting pardon
hardened in heart anew
but grateful to have sat under
thunder and rain with you
and grateful too,
for sunlight on the garden.
This is one of those rare poems I never consciously memorized, but just typed (fairly accurately, I hope) from memory. The eight syllables from Antony and Cleopatra are the greatest literary allusion I have ever read. They are woven inextricably into the intricate fabric of the poem, they are as appropriate to the outbreak of WWII as to A&C's disaster at Actium. They are as timeless after September 11 as they were after the invasion of Poland.
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