PLOG: Poetry Blog

193 and Counting

12/9/2023

Tomorrow, Sunday, December 10, 2023, is Emily Dickinson's 193rd birthday. How do you plan to celebrate?

I am presenting a program with a friend who will be singing my original songs based on some of Dickinson's poetry. The program also includes compositions based on the poetry of other poets as well: Langston Hughes, E. E. Cummings and Rita Dove.

The program for our event is shown below (click the images to enlarge).

However you plan to celebrate, just remember: Please celebrate responsibly! ; )

Dash It All -- Part 3

11/23/2023

Part 1 is HERE. Part 2 is HERE.

NOTE: The mention of "#DickinsonDaily posts" refers to my daily posts on the social platform Counter Social.

Recent #DickinsonDaily posts have discussed the poet’s use of dashes. Yesterday I included a link to a site which shows how early publications of Dickinson’s poetry changed her punctuation – including the omission of dashes.

Hmm…I wondered if Dickinson ever used the word “dash” in any of her poems. The answer – no; however, she did use the word “punctuation” in one poem, “The Robin is a Gabriel,” & she used the word “punctuate” in “The Dying need but little, Dear.”

“The Dying need but little” is a brief but intensely poignant poem (BTW: In line 6, read “that one” as “that someone,” someone who will no longer perceive color and beauty in the rainbow).

I remember when my older sister died of cancer a few years ago, my wife & I sat with my brother-in-law in their darkened home as my sister lay in a bed, eyes closed, breathing heavily, with one simple but essential need – earbuds to listen to a podcast or music.

In the final hours, who knows if she even comprehended what she was hearing – but it was a “little” thing to make her comfortable – like a bit of water or a flower there to “punctuate the wall.”

Now that she is gone, it is difficult to perceive “color in the Rainbow.” In truth, there is a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains I pass every single day – it was her favorite view of the mountains on the way to and from my home – and I can’t help but think of her on a daily basis when I pass that panoramic view of the landscape.

I found an interesting site with an article that discusses “The Dying need but little, Dear,” and that essay includes this:

“Likewise ‘The Dying need but little, Dear’ (Fr1037) appears to be a sort of primer on the elements of mourning: a vase, a flower, a fan: It tells how to express sorrow and how to pity. The assurance (and coherence) of the syntax disintegrates in the second stanza, however, as the speaker confronts the problem of naming the experience. The last need of ‘The Dying’ turns out to be ‘Certainty that one / No color in the Rainbow / Perceive, when you are gone—.’ Parsable English, apparently, fails to house the self-contained experience of either mourner or Dying; nevertheless, the very ambiguity serves to merge the experience of the two. Who is the ‘one’? Who is ‘you’? Color leaches out of the Rainbow alike for both, and that recognition answers their common ‘need.’”

The site with this essay, "Emily Dickinson's Republic of Suffering," is HERE.

Also, take a look at the poem in Dickinson’s own handwriting. You can see that someone – probably an earlier publisher – added an “s” to the verb “perceive” in line 8. As a result, you’ll find versions of the poem in some books with “perceive,” and other versions in other books with the word “perceives.”

Fin.

Dash It All -- Part 2

11/23/2023

The other day, I wrote a plog (poetry blog) post on Emily Dickinson's use of the dash. That initial post is HERE; below is Part 2:

Yesterday I touched on Dickinson’s use of the dash, and one site I found stated, “Most of Emily Dickinson’s poetry contains anywhere from eight dashes, as seen in poem 269, which begins ‘Wild Nights — Wild Nights!’ to 48 dashes, as seen in poem 522, which starts with the line ‘I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl—’”

I posted both the Franklin version of “I tie my Hat” – with 41 dashes – & the Johnson version – with 48 dashes (because of the inclusion of 5 additional lines) – but then I glanced through my Johnson version & saw that poem J430 “It would never be Common – more – I said –” included 60-plus dashes!

I don’t know if that’s the poem with the most dashes; I just happened to notice that it had quite a number of dashes as I flipped through the pages.

I did run a Google search on “What poem by Emily Dickinson includes the most dashes?” and though no specific answer/poem popped up – take a look at this site that shows “Percentage of Dash Reduction in Published Versions Compared to Originals”: Click HERE.

That’s right: Early publications of Dickinson’s poetry changed her punctuation (and spelling and capitalization and rhymes, etc.) – and in many cases they omitted most or all of her dashes.

On the site I linked above, click on the top banner option “Poems” (with the down-arrow), and you can see analyses of individual poems in the fascicle. For example, poem 1605 is “I felt a Funeral in my Brain.”

Then click on the colored tabs on the left (which name the various editions), and you can see line-by-line comparisons on how these early editions altered Dickinson’s punctuation.

Very cool (if you happen to be a Dickinson nerd like me). LOL).

Fin.

Dash It All

11/19/2023

I make a daily post on Counter Social with trivia, facts, and poetry of Emily Dickinson (FYI: I joined Counter Social over a year ago when Melon Husk allowed for the proliferation of hate speech and misinformation on Twitter, now my EX; I deleted my account there and joined CoSo).

Here's the post from today, 11/19/23:
Two days ago, I posted “The Future never spoke,” and @Marc_T_Benedict replied, “Interesting on the page. The proliferation of dashes.”

I jokingly wrote back that Dickinson’s motto when writing poetry was, “Dash it all!”
Of course, that made me wonder which poem of hers contains the most dashes – so I ran a Google-search: Which poem by Dickinson contains the most dashes?

Well, no specific answer popped up, but I did find various commentaries on Dickinson and the dash – including one that states this:

“Most of Emily Dickinson’s poetry contains anywhere from eight dashes, as seen in poem 269, which begins ‘Wild Nights — Wild Nights!’ to 48 dashes, as seen in poem 522, which start with the line ‘I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl—’”

The site is HERE.

Well, I checked “I tie my Hat – I crease my Shawl – “ and in the Franklin edition of Dickinson’s poems, it has 41 dashes. In the Johnson it has 48 dashes.

Why the difference? Well, the Franklin does include one dash at the end of Line 9 that is not in Johnson; however, the Johnson edition includes 5 lines (with 8 dashes) that do not appear in the Franklin version of the poem.

The Dickinson archive shows the poem in Dickinson’s handwriting through line 24 (“For their – sake – not for Ours –”) – and here’s what it says about the publication history of the poem – if you can make sense of it (BUT it does mention the “five other lines”):

FP (1929), 180, as six quatrains, without the final four lines (on h 157) and without the transposition. The lines were restored in Bingham, New England Quarterly, 20 (March 1947), 34-35, from transcripts of A (a tr344, 344d-f), with the transposition, and in Poems (1955), 341-43, from the holograph, without the transposition; both of these texts were preceded by five other lines on h 157 belonging to "A pit but heaven over it"; CP (1960), 212-13, without the transposition, with the five other lines. The text was established in Franklin, Harvard Library Bulletin, 28 (July 1980), 245-57. MB (1981), 553-54, 555, in facsimile. (J443). Franklin Variorum 1998 (F522A). -History from Franklin Variorum 1998"

So there you have it!

More on Dickinson's dashes tomorrow!

NOTE: @grayman on Counter Social responded: "Perhaps she was influenced by Clement Clarke Moore?
"Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!" LOL!

Busboys and Poets

11/7/2023

Some background: When Melon Husk took over Twitter and reinstated Grand Imperial Wizard Trump's account -- AND -- he allowed for uncontrolled, unchecked hate-speech and misinformation, I deleted my account. I then joined Counter Social, and I've been on that social media platform for a little over a year now. Plus, in early November 2023 on Counter Social, I started a regular feature with a daily post of facts, trivia, and poetry related to Emily Dickinson. I post info every morning and tag it with the hashtag, #DickinsonDaily.

Below are three posts -- from 11/2, 11/4 and 11/5 -- AND -- there's a surprise ending to it all!

From November 2:

I’ve got a lot of reading to do!

Article-wise, I did read “Bitchy Little Spinster: Emily and the Woman in her Orbit” (the woman being Mabel Loomis Tood) by Joanne O’Leary (via London Review of Books) – and though I did post some info from this article in early October (having to do w/the love affair between Ms. Todd and Dickinson’s brother Austin) – I want to read it again to gain more info on the early publications of Dickinson’s poetry.

I also have “The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson” (i.e., her “fascicles”) by R. W. Franklin, and “Reviewers’ Despair: The Politics of Dickinson’s Critical Reception during the 1890s” by Mariette Messmer. This article is basically a review of Willis J. Buckingham’s “Emily Dickinson Reception in the 1890s,” a compilation of all 600 extant notes and review articles published when the posthumous editions of Dickinson’s poetry first appeared.
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I also recently got “Positive as Sound: Emily Dickinson’s Rhyme” by Judy Jo Small. I had hoped Santa might drop that book off for me at Christmas – but lo & behold, my wife got it for me for my birthday!

Today I thought I’d share an interesting tidbit from the “Critical Reception” article re: reviews of Dickinson’s poetry after selected poems were published in 1890.

The article (again, a review of a much larger work by W. J. Buckingham) is divided into three sections:

1: Regional Rivalries: Boston vs. New York;
2: The British Reception; and
3: The Politics of Gender and Genre – and the “interesting tid-bit comes from the first section.

In this first passage, Messmer notes that before the turn of the 20th century, the publishing-center of the US was shifting from Boston to New York City:

“It is Boston’s decline as a literary authority, combined with New York’s increasing skepticism toward literary productions originating from this (former) rival…that is largely responsible for the relatively subdued responses to Dickinson’s poems shown by many of New York’s leading literary papers and magazines…(and as a result)...initially Dickinson was indeed advertised and marketed as a Boston product"..."She was a 'Boston Fad' before the national monthlies had a chance to comment."

She then provided this quote from Buckingham’s book: “Some New York and western publications warned against Dickinson as a 'Boston fad,' the enervated exemplar of a waning New England school of letters. One California paper, early on, suggested that her popularity was the self-serving creation of a ‘New England clique.’”

Turns out that Dickinson was quite an enduring fad, huh?

From November 4:

When Dickinson’s poems were first published in 1890, the literary center of the country was shifting from Boston to New York. As a result, some of the early reviews out of New York referred to Dickinson as the “Boston fad,” the enervated exemplar of a waning New England literary scene. Even one paper out in California suggested that her popularity was “the self-serving creation of a New England clique.”

Though many of the more-powerful literary voices were critical of Dickinson, out of the 20-plus reviews that appeared in New York in 1890 and 1891, approximately one-third were in papers and magazines that had strong ties to Dickinson supporters (Higginson, Todd, etc.) – and this helped her poetry from failing completely on the New York literary scene.

However, in an 1892 review, the long-time editor of the Atlantic Monthly, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, dismissed Dickinson and said this: "It is plain that Miss Dickinson possessed an extremely unconventional and grotesque fancy. She was deeply tinged by the mysticism of Blake, and strongly influenced by the mannerism of Emerson ... But the incoherence and formlessness of her versicles are fatal" -- and he added, "an eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England village (or anywhere else) cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravitation and grammar.”And by the way – Aldrich was not alone in his criticisms of Dickinson – and the early reviews seemed to focus on the debate between those who believed “poetry could dispense with traditional form and finish and those who believed it could not.”

Hmm…here’s an experiment you can try today: Ask your friends if they’ve heard of Emily Dickinson; then ask if they’ve heard of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. LOL.

From November 5:

Yesterday I mentioned early (as in 1890, 1891, and 1892) reviews of Dickinson’s poetry. She was called the “Boston fad,” and the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, dismissed Dickinson for her “incoherence and formlessness,” and said she was “an eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England village”

LOL – then I asked people to conduct an experiment: “Ask your friends if they’ve heard of Emily Dickinson; then ask if they’ve heard of Thomas Bailey Aldrich.”
That reminded me of a story of another well-known American poet, who – when he was working as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC – he encountered poet Vachel Lindsay, with whom he shared some poems.
Have you heard of Vachel Lindsay?

He lived from 1879 until 1931, and the Wikipedia article about him states, “In the final twenty years of his life, Lindsay was one of the best-known poets in the U.S.”

Again – have you heard of Vachel Lindsay?
Well, the busboy I mentioned earlier recognized Mr. Lindsay when he visited the restaurant -- so he shared some of his own works with the poet – and Mr. Lindsay was so impressed he encouraged and mentored the young busboy poet.

As a matter of fact, there’s a chain of restaurants in the Washington DC area named “Busboys and Poets,” named after the incident at the Wardman Park Hotel when the busboy (and future poet) recognized poet Vachel Lindsay and shared some of his poems with him.

Do you know the name of the busboy poet? I guarantee you do.

The busboy who later became a well-known poet was Langston Hughes.

And now -- like Paul Harvey used to say -- you know the rest of the story!

Octography

10/1/2023

I deleted my Twitter account months ago when Melon Huck took over and he allowed hate speech to proliferate on the site and he courted Imperial Grand Master Trump, and at that time I joined Counter Social -- a much more civil and enjoyable site for conversation with real and sane people!

Anyway, on Counter Social this month I am starting up a bit of fun today, Oct 1, with a month-long challenge to post pictures throughout the month (one per day or one on any given day) based on themes -- and the themes can be interpreted however one interprets them!

The themes are listed on the right (click the pic to enlarge) -- and the pics can be photos, photoshops, clips, closeups, or any sort of visual depiction. Whatever. It’s all for fun.

I'll be posting them here, over on Counter Social, and on my account on Threads. If you're on Counter Social or Threads, you can join the fun -- just use the hashtag #Octography (does Threads use hashtags?).

CLICK THE IMAGES BELOW TO ENLARGE

Oct 1: Zodiacal Arc:
Starry Night, Drawn to Scale.

Oct 2: Seasonal Spices
Yes, more autumn please!

Oct 3: Gourd-geous:
A couple of gourd-geous seasonal icons.

Oct 4: Autumnal Creatures
Which creature is scarier?

Oct 5: Afterlife. The tombstone is for the inventor of the Ouija Board.

Oct 6: Devil May Care: Rodin carved “The Gates of Hell” in 1880, and there at the top wait three disciples is Satan — Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, & Pat Robertson — and the three wait and watch for Donald Trump to make his final descent into the Underworld where he, like the three, will burn for all eternity.

Oct 7: Fruits of the Season
I picked up this print in Amherst, MA. Can you guess the owners of the house shown in the background?

Oct 8: Trees / Leaves
This magnificent tree is about a mile from my house.

Oct 9: Candle / Fire

The largest Fire ever known
Occurs each Afternoon--
Discovered is without surprise
Proceeds without concern--
~Emily Dickinson

Oct 10: Seasonal Brews

Once, when I was in Walla Walla, Washington, I ordered a pumpkin spice cream cold brew at Starbucks & the barista gave me extra cream in a small to-go cup. Oh my — it was heaven!

Oct 11: Masks

Flashback to a time when the Trump Virus was running rampant.

(FYI: I made pics 1, 2 & 3, but I found pic 4 online. I did make a Van Gogh — but in mine he was wearing his mask! )

Oct 12: Unmasked

Even with all the variants of the Trump Virus throughout the pandemic — from its start to today — most cray-cray conservatives refused to wear a mask — proving definitively that you can’t mask stupidity and arrogance.

Oct 13: Midnight Hour

The Doomsday Clock’s original setting in 1947 was seven minutes to midnight. It has since been set backward eight times and forward 17 times for a total of 25. The farthest time from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991, and the nearest is 90 seconds, set on January 24, 2023.

Oct 14: Happy Hour

My daughter got married by Elvis in Vegas today!

Oct 15: Mo(u)rning Hour

Pics are from the field of Presidents Heads in Virginia (….and the punchline to the well-known joke is “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the show?”)

Oct 16: Shades of Black

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!

Oct 17: Danse Macabre

The pic is from the National Memorial for Peace & Justice which includes 805 hanging steel rectangles, representing each of the counties in the United States where a documented lynching took place.

Oct 18: Night Sky

Starlight Night by Georgia O’Keeffe (1917)

Oct 19: La Luna

A friend of mine took this pic of the sphere in Las Vegas — with La Luna behind it!

Oct 20: Elixirs and Libations

Oct 21: Chambers

Oct 22: Vintage Style

Past covers from the New Yorker

Oct 23: Etched in Stone

CALLED BACK

Oct 24: Still Life

Oct 25: Autumnal Rituals

Are you ready to play the Lottery?

Oct 26: Web of Intrigue

Hmm…the pic fits better with the theme of Web of Criminality, but hey — it is intriguing to see the goons turn on their mob boss!

Oct 27: Velocity of Pause

Oct 28: Autumn Inferred

Oct 29: Shadow Play

1: The abandoned DeJarnette Sanitarium outside Staunton, VA — where many atrocities took place!
2: Me inside the abandoned train tunnel under Afton Mountain near Waynesboro, VA.
3: Sunset along Skyline Drive.
4: Trees along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Oct 30: Harvest Season

Oct 31: Brilliant Disguise

Theater Goer

9/16/2023

Good lord, Lauren Boebert acted the fool during a performance of the musical "Beetlejuice" and was escorted out of the audience. Of course, in a Trumpian move, she denied her own crude behavior; even her campaign manager claimed she was faultless, that it was all a misunderstanding. Now she's issued an apology -- because it was all true -- info is HERE.

And when it all went down, what did she say to the theater ushers and security when they evicted her from the theater?

In a pure MAGA-Karen move, she barked, "Do you know who I am? I'm going to call your mayor."

The hubris and chutzpah on the part of this MAGA Swamp Critter reminded me of Emmett Lee Dickinson's poem "Do you know who I am?" -- below on the left. Dickinson's poem inspired his third cousin Emily to pen her poem, "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" -- below on the right.

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

Do you know who I am?
And you – you’re a -- Nobody!
I am a powerhouse!
I’ll call your mayor – you know!

How dreary – to be – Nobody!
I’m public – show me Pomp --
And heed my name – the livelong Day –
And my admiring Swamp!

By Emily Dickinson:

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!

How dreary - to be - Somebody!
How public - like a Frog -
To tell one's name - the livelong June -
To an admiring Bog!

January Sixth Sense

8/1/2023

January Sixth Sense: I see indicted people!

Yep, it's happened again -- Grand Imperial Trump has been indicted once more, this time for his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection to overthrow our government.

READ THE INDICTMENT -- CLICK HERE.

Our reaction here at the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum? IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!

We'll likely report further on this and on the upcoming trial, but for now, in tribute to the historic indictment, we'll post Emmett Lee Dickinson's poem "Lies are the workings of the man" (below on the left). Dickinson's poem inspired his third cousin to pen her poem "Bliss is the plaything of the child" (below on the right). Emily Dickinson also wrote a second version of the poem, "Bliss is the scepter of the child" (also below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

Lies are the workings of the man –
The treason and disgust
The toxic stealth of Coverup
Indict him, if we must

By Emily Dickinson:
(In the Johnson edition of her poems)

Bliss is the plaything of the child --
The secret of the man
The sacred stealth of Boy and Girl
Rebuke it if we can

By Emily Dickinson:
(In the Franklin edition of her poems)

Bliss is the scepter of the child --
The lever of the man
The sacred stealth of boy and girl
Indict it, if we can

Hanging by a Thread

7/30/2023

NOTE: The info below was originally posted earlier in the month when Meta's "Threads" app was launched. The app exploded with record numbers of users who were leaving Twitter -- now re-branded as "X" -- which is now even more of a wasteland of racists, White Supremacists, and conspiracy theorists.

What a difference a day makes, huh?

LOL -- I'm talking about micro-blogging online (hmm...is it even still referred to as "microblogging"?).

I used to "tweet" on Twitter for The Dickinson Museum (i.e., this online museum dedicated to the life and poetry of Emmett Lee Dickinson, Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request); however, when Melon Husk took over and allowed hate speech to proliferate, we'd had enough -- so our Board decided to delete the museum's account. We here at the ELD Museum want NOTHING to do with social platforms that advocate and advance Fascism and neo-Nazi ideology promoted by today's GQP(formerly the GOP) and Imperial Grand Wizard Donald Trump.

Well, this week, META inaugurated a similar platform called "Threads" through its Instagram app. I thought, "why not," and when I got word that the platform was live, so I signed up. LOL -- I was one of the "early adopters" (among the first 2 million users).

In tribute to the kick-off of Threads and the demise of Twitter, I have posted Emmett Lee Dickinson's poem "To mend my tattered Faith" below on the left. Dickinson's poem inspired third cousin to pen her poem "To mend each tattered Faith," below on the right.

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

To mend my tattered Faith
With online Tete-a-tete
This new App rehabilitates –
'Tis Threads now on the Net –

And though it shows no wear
With miles to go in Store
'Tis very comfortable indeed
Auspicious as before –

By Emily Dickinson:

To mend each tattered Faith
There is a needle fair
Though no appearance indicate –
'Tis threaded in the Air –

And though it do not wear
As if it never Tore
'Tis very comfortable indeed
And spacious as before –

BY THE WAY: If you're on Threads (and Instagram), give me a follow. My name is @jimasher, and my pic is of an Interstate 10 sign -- that's a story I'll explain at a later date! I am also on Counter Social as @Route10 / James Asher.

PLEASE: NO RIGHT-WING CRAZIES: By authority of the Supreme Court of the United States, I hereby ban GQP nutjobs and ultra MAGA Morons from my site and posts. Thx!

Pictured at the right: Is Melon Husk the SINK KING -- or is he SINKING?

Deep Fry

7/2/2023

My wife and I recently purchased an air-fryer. We'd heard good to great reviews from friends, so we thought we'd give one a try.

Our initial review?

It's okay -- but I'm just not sure (yet?) if this will be a "game changer" for us with our cooking.

Frist, it's not a time-saver by any means. I didn't know about that. I dunno why -- but I thought it would speed things up. Not so. AND -- if I use it for one dish for a meal, I really can't use it for another. I learned that lesson when I air-fried some chicken for dinner-- and then when the meal was just about complete, I didn't realize how much time the vegetable side dish would require -- so the meal was complete EXCEPT for the side dish. LOL -- we ate in shifts.

Second, I haven't seemed to "perfect" the fried potato. I've tried making French fries, sweet potato fries, hash browns, etc. -- all from whole potatoes -- but the textures just haven't been right. Friends now say, "no -- don't peel and cut potatoes. Instead, use frozen fries or tater tots." So we bought a bag of frozen fries and a bag of frozen tots today, and we'll try one (or both?) this week. I'll provide an update later.

For now, I'll provide Emmett Lee Dickinson's ode to the tater tot, "Bliss is the platter of the tot," below on the left. Dickinson's poem inspired his third cousin Emily to pen her poem "Bliss is the plaything of the child," below on the right.

AS A BONUS: I've also posted Emmett Lee Dickinson's "I put the Belt around my waist" and Emily's "He put the Belt around my life."

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

Bliss is the platter of the tot –
The banquet of mankind
The sacred mic of Spud and Grease
Rebake them if you can

By Emily Dickinson:

Bliss is the plaything of the child –
The secret of the man
The sacred stealth of Boy and Girl
Rebuke it if we can

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

I put the Belt around my waist
I heard the Buckle snap –
And turned away, uncomfortable,
My Waistline folding up –
Deliberate, as a Batter does
Before the Dough is fried –
Henceforth, a Fed-and-Weighted sort –
A Member of the Wide.

Yet not too fat to lose it all –
And do the little Toils
That make Circumference more Compressed –
And walk occasional miles
To step on scales to note the line –
As daily I weigh in –
But inclination to consume
For Food I can’t decline.

By Emily Dickinson:

He put the Belt around my life
I heard the Buckle snap –
And turned away, imperial,
My Lifetime folding up –
Deliberate, as a Duke would do
A Kingdom's Title Deed –
Henceforth, a Dedicated sort –
A Member of the Cloud.

Yet not too far to come at call –
And do the little Toils
That make the Circuit of the Rest –
And deal occasional smiles
To lives that stoop to notice mine –
And kindly ask it in –
Whose invitation, know you not
For Whom I must decline?