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 Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Essay: first part of The Philosophy of Shelley" by Yeats

Short story: The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. Not strictly a short story but a friend told me it was the story of the Fisher King, so I read it that way.

Poem:

Pine-Trees and the Sky: Evening

by Rupert Brooke

I'd watched the sorrow of the evening sky,

And smelt the sea, and earth, and the warm clover,

And heard the waves, and the seagull's mocking cry.

And in them all was only the old cry,

That song they always sing -- "The best is over!

You may remember now, and think, and sigh,

O silly lover!"

And I was tired and sick that all was over,

And because I,

For all my thinking, never could recover

One moment of the good hours that were over.

And I was sorry and sick, and wished to die.

Then from the sad west turning wearily,

I saw the pines against the white north sky,

Very beautiful, and still, and bending over

Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky.

And there was peace in them; and I

Was happy, and forgot to play the lover,

And laughed, and did no longer wish to die;

Being glad of you, O pine-trees and the sky!