Michele Biehler-Bass

Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.

By all means.

——-

You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.

Quite true.

THE WORK: A Story Begins
THE QUOTATION: Plato. The Republic. c. 360 B.C. Socrates speaks to Adeimantus. (Trans. by Benjamin Jewett.)

Mother
with the blink of an eye
his love vanished
A trinket gets
dangled
into your world
you reach out and it’s gone

THE WORK: Book of Songs
THE POET: King Hala, 17th ruler of the Satavahana dynasty, 20-24 CE

Help! He is gone. That wild boy, Love, has escaped!
Just now, as day was breaking, he flew from his bed and was gone.
Description? Sweetly tearful, talks forever, swift, irreverent,
Slyly laughing, wings on his back, and carries a quiver.
His last name? I don’t know, for his father and mother,
Whoever they are, in earth or heaven, won’t admit it.
Everyone hates him, you see. Take care, take care,
Or even now he’ll be weaving new snares for your heart.
But hush - look there, turn slowly. You don’t deceive me, boy,
Drawing your bow so softly where you hid in Zenophile’s eyes.

THE WORK: The Garland (excerpt)
THE POET: Meleager of Syria, circa 90 BC
(Translated by Thomas McEvilley)

Will no one tell me what she sings?-
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

A slumber did my spirit seal
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

THE WORK: THE SOLITARY REAPER
THE POET: William Wordsworth

We wove a web in childhood
A web of sunny air
We dug a spring in infancy
Of water pure and fair

We sowed in youth a mustard seed
We cut an almond rod
We are now grown up to riper age
Are they withered in the sod?

THE WORK: RETROSPECTION
THE POET: Charlotte Bronte

My friend, I am not what I seem.
Seeming is but a garment I wear—
a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings
and thee from my negligence.

The “I” in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence,
and therein it shall remain for ever more,
unperceived,
unapproachable.

THE WORK: A GARMENT
THE POEM: MY FRIEND
THE POET: KAHIL GIBRAN

Lo! in that house of misery

A lady with a lamp I see

Pass through the glimmering gloom,

And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be

Opened and then closed suddenly,

 The vision came and went,

The light shone and was spent.

THE WORK: SAINT PHILOMENA
THE POET: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers
Are lying in field and lane,
With dandelions to tell the hours
That never are told again.
Oh may I squire you round the meads
And pick you posies gay?
-'Twill do no harm to take my arm.
“You may, young man, you may."
…
Oh, look in my eyes then, can you doubt?
—Why, ’tis a mile from town.
How green the grass is all about!
We might as well sit down.
—Ah, life, what is it but a flower?
Why must true lovers sigh?
Be kind, have pity, my own, my pretty,—
‘Good-bye, young man, good-bye.’

THE WORK: MY PRETTY
THE POEM: A Shropshire Lad, V
THE POET: AE Houseman

Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,
As though I felt the worst that love could do?
Love might make me leave loving, or might try
A deeper plague, to make her love me too;
Which, since she loves before, I’m loth to see.
Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,
If she who I love, should love me.

THE WORK: REBEL AND ATHEIST
THE POEM: LOVES DEITY
THE POET: JOHN DONNE

The sovereign beauty which I do admire,
Witness the world how worthy to be praised:
The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire
In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised;
That being now with her huge brightness dazed,
Base thing I can no more endure to view;
But looking still on her, I stand amazed
At wondrous sight of so celestial hue.
So when my tongue would speak her praises due,
It stopped is with thought's astonishment:
And when my pen would write her titles true,
It ravish'd is with fancy's wonderment:
Yet in my heart I then both speak and write
The wonder that my wit cannot endite.

THE WORK: MADONNA
THE POEM: AMORETTI III: SOVEREIGN BEAUTY
THE POET: EDMUND SPENSER

A Bird, came down the Walk - 
He did not know I saw -
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw, 

And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass -
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass -

He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad -
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. - 

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers, 
And rowed him softer Home -

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon, 
Leap, plashless as they swim. 

THE WORK: BOYS WITH BIRDS
POETRY: Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,  

And sweetest in the gale is heard;          
And sore must be the storm  
That could abash the little bird  
That kept so many warm.  

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea; 
Yet, never, in extremity,  
It asked a crumb of me.

THE WORK: BOY WITH BIRD
POETRY: Emily Dickinson

Till now, thou warmd'st with mutiplying loves
Two larks, two sparrows, or two doves,
   All that is nothing unto this,
For thou this day couplest two Phoenixes;
   Thou mak'st a Taper see
What the sun never saw, and what the Ark
(Which was of fowls, and beasts, the cage and park,)
Did not contain, one bed contains, through thee,
   Two Phoenixes, whose joined breasts
Are unto one another mutual nests,
Where motion kindles such fires, as shall give
Young Phoenixes, and yet the old shall love.
Whose love and courage never shall decline,
But make the whole year through, thy day, O Valentine.

THE WORK: NOTEBOOK I
THE POETRY: John Donne

ONE night, when half my life behind me lay,
I wandered from the straight lost path afar.

Through the great dark was no releasing way;
Above that dark was no relieving star.

If yet that terrored night I think or say,
As death's cold hands its fears resuming are.

Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire to tell,
The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot,
I turn my tale to that which next befell,
When the dawn opened, and the night was not.

THE WORK: Canto I, Inferno (excerpt)
THE POET: Dante Alighieri

Full of rebellion, I would die,
Or fight, or travell, or denie
That thou hast ought to do with me.
                                        O tame my heart,
                               It is thy highest art
To captivate strong holds to thee.

If thou shalt let this venome lurk,
And in suggestions fume and work,
My soul will turn to bubbles straigh,
                                            And thence by kinde
                               Vanish into a winde,
Making thy workmanship deceit.

O smooth my rugged heart, and there
Engrave thy rev’rend Law and fear;
Or make a new one, since the old
                                            Is saplesse grown,
                                And a much fitter stone
To hide my dust, then thee to hold.

THE WORK: WHAT IMPELS US TO INQUIRY
THE POETRY: George Herbert

By a river in a green meadow, where there is at all points so much sweetness, I saw a garden, full of blossomy boughs, with white, blue, yellow and red flowers; and cold fountain-streams, not at all dead, full of small shining fish with red fins and silver-bright scales. On every bough I heard the birds sing with the voice of angels in their melody. Some busied themselves to lead forth their young. The little bunnies hastened to play. Further on I noticed all about the timid roe, the buck, harts and hinds and squirrels and small beasts of gentle nature. I heard stringed instruments playing harmonies of such ravishing sweetness that God, Maker and Lord of all, never heard better, I believe. At the same time a wind, scarce could it have been gentler, made in the green leaves a soft noise which accorded with the song of the birds above. The air of that place was so mild that never was there discomfort for heat or cold. Every wholesome spice and herb grew there, and no person could age or sicken. There was a thousand times more joy than man can tell. And it would never be night there, but ever bright day in every man's eye.

THE WORK: Notebook II
THE POETRY: Geoffrey Chaucer

Glad then, as miners that have found the ore, 
They with mad labour fish’d the land to shore; 
And div’d as desperately for each piece
Of earth, as if’t had been of ambergris; 
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay, 
Less than what building swallows bear away; 
Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll,
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.

THE WORK: 
THE POETRY: Andrew Marvel

A green level of lily leaves
Roofs the pond's chamber and paves

The flies' furious arena: study
These, the two minds of this lady.

First observe the air's dragonfly
That eats meat, that bullets by

Or stands in space to take aim;
Others as dangerous comb the hum

Under the trees.
 There are battle-shouts
And death-cries everywhere hereabouts

But inaudible, so the eyes praise
To see the colours of these flies

Rainbow their arcs, spark, or settle
Cooling like beads of molten metal

Through the spectrum.
 Think what worse
is the pond-bed's matter of course;

Prehistoric bedragoned times
Crawl that darkness with Latin names,

Have evolved no improvements there,
Jaws for heads, the set stare,

Ignorant of age as of hour—
Now paint the long-necked lily-flower

Which, deep in both worlds, can be still
As a painting, trembling hardly at all

Though the dragonfly alight,
Whatever horror nudge her root.

THE WORK:  HOW TO PAINT A WATER LILY
THE POETRY: Ted Hughes

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

THE WORK:  IRISH BLESSING
THE POETRY: Irish Blessing

Where trip-hammers crash—where the press is whirling its cylinders; 
Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs; 
Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it myself, and looking composedly down;) 
Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose—where the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand;
Where the she-whale swims with her calf, and never forsakes it; Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke; Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water; Where the half-burn’d brig is riding on unknown currents, Where shells grow to her slimy deck—where the dead are corrupting below;...
Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while; Walking the old hills of Judea, with the beautiful gentle God by my side; 
Speeding through space—speeding through heaven and the stars;
Speeding amid the seven satellites, and the broad ring, and the diameter of eighty thousand miles; 
Speeding with tail’d meteors—throwing fire-balls like the rest;
Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly; 
Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning, 
Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing;
I tread day and night such roads.

THE WORK: Notebook III
THE POETRY: Walt Whitman

A shadie grove not far away they spied,
That promist ayde the tempest to withstand;
Whose loftie trees, yclad with sommers pride,
Did spred so broad, that heaven’s light did hide,
Not perceable with power of any starr
And all within were pathes and alleies wide,
With footing worne, and leading inward far:
Faire harbour that them seems; so in they entred are.

And forth they passe, with pleasure forward led,
Joying to heare the birdes’ sweete harmony,
Which therein shrouded from the tempest dred,
Seemed in their song to scorne the cruell sky.
Much can they praise the trees so straight and high,
The sayling pine; the cedar proud and tall;
The vine-propp elme; the poplar never dry;
The builder oake, sole king of forrests all;
The aspine good for staves; the cypresse funerall;

The laurell meed of mightie conquerours
And poets sage; the fir that weepeth still;
The willow, worne of forlorne paramours;      
The yew, obedient to the bender’s will;
The birch for shaftes; the sallow for the mill;
The mirrhe sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound;
The warlike beech; the ash for nothing ill;
The fruitful olive; and the platane round;
The carver holme; the maple, seldom inward sound.

THE WORK: Puritan Girl
THE POETRY: Edmund Spenser

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
       Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, 
       Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, 
       Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint. 
Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint
       Purification in the old Law did save, 
       And such as yet once more I trust to have
       Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, 
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind; 
       Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight
       Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
So clear as in no face with more delight. 
       But Oh! as to embrace me she inclin'd, 
       I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

THE WORK:
THE POETRY:  John Milton, Sonnet 23

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)                                                               
                                                        i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

THE WORK: Notebook IV
THE POETRY: e.e. cummings

What Twigs We held by --
Oh the View
When Life's swift River striven through
We pause before a further plunge
To take Momentum --
As the Fringe

Upon a former Garment shows
The Garment cast,
Our Props disclose
So scant, so eminently small
Of Might to help, so pitiful
To sink, if We had labored, fond
The diligence were not more blind

How scant, by everlasting Light
The Discs that satisfied Our Sight --
How dimmer than a Saturn's Bar
The Things esteemed, for Things that are!

THE WORK: WHAT TWIGS
THE POETRY:  Emily Dickinson