Library of Congress lectures II; Episode 9 of 9

He heard the coughing tiger in the night push at his door close by his quiet head about the wattle cabin. The soft tread of heavy feet he followed. And the slight sigh of the long banana leaves in sight at last and leaning westward over head the Centaur and the cross. Now heralded the sun far off but matching. Green light. What time this central and the cross were spent night in the beast retired into the hill where act serene and undeveloped he lay. And Goldstone stretched and listened and lay still breathing into his body with content. The temperate dawn before the tropic day. Observe how many on the sheet are cracked into two and slid into the valley. He that stood grinning with terror in the bamboo wood saw the earth he knew and thrust its bowels through the heel of his own kitchen slide from view.

Spilling the warm bowl of his humble food into the lap of horror. Mark how blue this clouded Gulf. Was here his paddy grew red in dismay. I've not been compassed him the commonsense sets unhurried and aloof into the riven village falls the rain. Days pass. The ash is cool he builds again his paper house upon a billions brim. And plants the purple iris in its roof. He walked in teller told Sky more bright than middle day. He heard the sick earth groan and rare to see the lazy smoking cone of the Fire Mountain friendly to his sight as his wife's hand gone strange and full of fright over his fleeing shoulder it was shown rolling its picture a lake of scalding stone upon his house

that had no feet off like where did he weep. Where did he sit him down and sorrow with his head between his knees. Where said the race of man here let me drown. Here let me die of hunger let me freeze. By nightfall. He has built another town. This boiling pot this clearing in the trees. The broken dike. In the levee washed away the good fields flooded and the cattle drowned. A strange turn treacherous. All the faithful ground. And nothing left but floating disarray of tree and home uprooted. Was this the day a. Man dropped a poly shadow without a sound and died. Having labored well and having found his burden heavier than a quilt of clay. No no. I saw him when the sun had set in water.

Leaning on his single or above his garden. Faintly glimmering yet there above the plough. Here washed the up drifted weeds and scull across his roof and make for shore with twisted face and pocket full of sea. Sweeter words loss there is silver coins to spend sweeter with famine than the belly feel. That a little blood in the veins the blood spilled. Better than corn and healthy flocks to tend and a tight roof an acre is without end. Was the barn burned and the mild creatures killed. On the back. Aging fast and all too building. For there it was his neighbor was his friend. Then for a moment the averted eye was turned upon him with didn't ignorant. The defiance faltered. And derision slept he

saw what is in our unhappy dream. The kindly head against the horrid sky. And scowled. They cleared his throat and spat and wept. Now fourth to Meadow as the farmer goes with shining buckets to the nuking ground he meets the Black Ant hurrying from his mound to milk the atheist's pasture down the road. But no good morrow as you might suppose. No not of greeting no perfunctory sound passes between them. No occasions found for gossip as to how the fodder grows in chilly autumn on the hardening road they meet again driving their flocks to stall to herdsman each winter for the go they meet and pass and never a word it all gives one to t'other.

On the Quaids abode of each the evening and the first snow fall. Here's heatless rumor. The watcher of the stars nightly inhabits when the night is clear. Dropping his mattress on the turnings via Saturn his rings or Jupiter he follows. All the fleeing moons of my. Tail from his ticking lens they disappear. Whereat he sighs and yawns and on his ear the busy chirp of Earth remotely Giles piece at the void's heart through the wordless night. A lamb cropping the awful grasses graze earthward. The trouble lies. What strikes is like the dawn industrious man and an amaze goes forth to plough. Flinging a riddle stone at all endeavor alien to

his own. Him not the golden Fang of furious heaven no holy Neil or Sally's awful field of foggy spectra running the swift. No flood no earthquake though the red turn even of fire disasters dogged. Him him the reason of all save the hearts knocking and to feel the air upon his face. Not the great heel of headrests force into the dust has driven these sunken cities cheer on tear. Bespeak ever from the ashes with proud beacon shining feathers did the phoenix rise and sail and send the vulture from the skies. That in the end returned for man was weak before the unkindness in his brothers. Now set his foot upon the Easton to seal Aldebaran

swiftly rising mountain high. And tracks the Pleiades down the crowded sky and drives his way due to the Western hero. Now for the Void set for. And further still the questioning mind of man that by and by from the void the room returns with I having seen him self into the maelstrom spilled all over Adam blenched not lest you find in the sun's bubbling anonymous dead now lost in whistling space without a mind to a monstrous nothing. You yield your little breath. You shall achieve destruction where you stand in intimate conflict actual brothers and. Alas for a man so stealthily betrayed bearing the bad cell in him from the start pumping and feeding from his healthy

heart that Wilders sauda never to be stayed when once established destined to invade with angry hordes. The true and proper path. To reason joggles in the headsman's cart and mania spits from every balustrade. Would he had searched his closet for his bane. Well look the trusted ancient of his soul obsequious greed and seen that Visage plain would be had little treason from his side in his stout youth and bled his body home. Then he died a king. All never die. Only the diamond and the diamonds dust can render up the diamond. Unternehmen won an invulnerable as it began it endured. But for the treacherous thrust that laid its hard heart open as it

must and ground it down and fitted it to span a turban brow a fret an ivory fan lopped of its stature. Pared of its proper crust so man. By all the wheels of heaven and scored. Man the stout ego the exuberant mind no edge could cleave no acid could consume the him split along the vein by his own kind gives over. Rolls upon the power of the Horde. Is set in brass on the swamp of doom. Here lies and none to mourn him but the sea that falls incessant on the empty Shaw. Mostly they areas men cut down to spring no more. Before his prime or even in his infancy cut down and all the clamor that was he

silenced and all the riveted pride the wall of rusted iron column whose tall Corps the reins have tunneled like an aspen tree man doubting man. What power his brow to low that heaven itself could not persuade to lay aside the lever and the spade and be as dust among the dust that blow whence whence the broadside and who was that heavy blade. Try. Not to speak poor scattered. I know why. Thanks. T Thank you.

Thank you very much for the second part of my program. You see what I mean here. I'm calling up on a friend who has joined me in celebrating my sister's birthday. Not last year because he was in the honey making moving picture called The comedians and he couldn't be a fast so so when they reversed the Malays society which is a little group not very big but very earnest an eager group of girls got together the vacillates society. Actually we four years ago they wanted me to come in and read and I invited Roscoe Lee Browne to come and read with me and for three years at Vassar on my sister's birthday or as close as possible. We read together. And he is here with me tonight to read the poit. Roscoe Brown and a beautiful read of poetry and a splendid

actor. Many of you will recognize him when you see him and here he is with no more ado. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. It's mouth story. It'll. Really thought oh my respects. Oh a lot. See that's what I say. I don't see first what you know. Oh to him. Because I'd be pretty severe you know. Oh right. The two encounter. Find true encounter actually tells how the ladies get men. Well you know I'm quite finished.

Wolf the crowd my cunning heart. At every street it spied and rouse the countryside Wolf. Wolf. And up it started good neighbors bringing spade and pitchfork to my aid. At length my cry was know that in a day my release I met the wolf. And was and was devout in peace. As sharp as in my childhood still ecstasy shocks me fixed the will cannot entice it never could so never try. But from the wood the wind will hurl the clashing sleet or a small fall on your lovely feet uncertain in its

gait. We walk among the ferns now breaking back one from my bruising one found black. Into the clearing and appraise with my own attracted wondering gaze and lifted head. I'm hurt and knew this well that he was born into it. Such marvels as one time I feared might go. And leave me unprepared for hardship. But they never did. They blazed before me still as wild and clear as when I was a child. They never went away at all. I need not though I do recall such moments in my childhood when Wonder sprang out at me again and took me by the heels and weld me round and round above the world for one leaps upon me still and makes me dizzy makes me ill but never frightened for I know not where but in whose hands I

go. The lovely thing is of delight to have hold of me and hold me tight. I've. Well. I know one. It is the fashion to wave aside as tedious obvious vacuous trivial trite all things which do not tickle tease excite to some subversion or in verbiage high intent on lock or with hot sauce provide a dish to prick the thickened appetite straightforwardness is wrong. Evasion right. It is correct to deride watch Fumi which these modern wags expose for all their

versatility. But what about a night cap. And we close in fear of drops all windows could declare an antique stuffiness a phrase that blows still through men smoking minds and clears the air. If I don't open the book as some of the country. Oh here's one I I want to say to Norma. I know that there. Are sweet sounds or beautiful music. Do not cease reject me not into the world again with you alone is excellence and peace. Mankind made plausible. His purpose plain and chanted in your benign and

shrewd with limbs of sprawl and empty faces pale the spiteful and the stingy and the rude. Sleep like the scorpions in a fairy tale. This moment is the best the world can give. The tranquil blossom on the tortured stem. Reject me not sweet words. Oh let me live to do as by my towers and scatter them a city spellbound under an ageing sun music my rampart and my only one line. Do I know I know that much as I'd love you to come down. You sound.

All right. I know it's very bad practice for an activity that makes me think. Which would you like in a musing tone. And if I loved you Wednesday what is that to you. I do not love you so much as true and why you come complaining is more than I can see I loved you Wednesday yes but what is that to me. Of. The obvious I mean there isn't it's not right. But so from now on. I do mine. Yes. But I want to stay home. I think I should learn some beautiful language.

Not far. I'm sorry. I think I will learn some beautiful language. Useless for commercial purposes. Ok hard on that. I think I will learn the Latin name for every song bird. I don't know in America but wherever they sing. Shun meditation though. Invite the controversy over. Is the world flat. Do bats eat cats. If I did hide I might deflect that river my mind. That uncontrollable thing turgid and yellow strong to overflow its banks in spring washing away bridges. Dry bit of pebbles now through which trickles one clear narrow stream whose course henceforth knew fast.

Dig dig. And if I come to ledges blast. Of. Me. We. Are. What. We say I stand. All right. But if you do it is more towards you. If I could have two things in one piece I would agree. And the light of the sun. My hands across my thin breast bone but aware of the mass invading the stone. I wear the flight of the golden flicker with his wing to the light to hear him Nica and drum with this bill on the rotted Willow. Snout.

And still on a great pillow deep in the clay with the digging is out of the way. The blue shard of a broken platter. If I might be insensate matter with sensitive me sitting within hockey and prying I might begin to decry it with dying for the Body of Christ as a bundle of aches and longing for rest. It cries when it wakes. Alas tis light. And set of sun. Alas tis night and nothing done. Yet however is a spongy wall is a sticky river is nothing at all. Summon the. Wheel and sing. Call him. Angel. King called an evil drunk Polese monster dead. He is less than the has called him feed the latitude achieves the kind of relief he is less than these. Dusk. Without sound. With a spirit by pain uncoiled is wiling to spring again

the mind and measure it straight in repose and the body refreshed by feeding the rose. These fish arms. These would be the graves the reason for the grave see here is the wish of one that died like a beached fish on the edge of a tide that he might wait for the tide came back to see if a crate or a buffalo or a black hole or or are or an aren't. He'll be washed ashore. How about his heel the sand slips the last he hears from the world so it is the sand. In his ears. What thing is a little the aphids hid in a house of spittle. The hinge of the lid of the spider's I'm. At the spider's bed. Brink I think that's good. Then might be death. All creatures cry that can summon breath and speak no lie. For he is nothing. He is less than Echo and serene nothingness lest in the heat of the furthest star the ripening wheat that's by far when all the

dipping is said and sung in the sweat dripping from a dog's tongue. This being so and I being such I would leave a going to pickle scraps locked and felled leave him be dependent on a chair propelled by a surly attendant with a foul breath and be spoiling my food and go with death for nothing good and even the price for the summer that consoles the dust for being that. Needy and lonely stitched by Paine left with only the trick for the rain out of all I had the books of the wise badly read by other guys. He would leave bolted my clothes in gear. Hated cold a lingering here with standing death to life because I should treasure my breath I shall linger on. I shall poke my door with a Botella keeping I shall block my door with a bureau and a table with all my might. My doors will be but I should put up a fight. I shall take it out with his hand on my monkeys will drag me for shrieking to the south and clutching at an old. I've.