After the strangest dream......in which Edgar Allen Poe was mind-wrestling with Thomas Holley Chivers over a sing-song poem in archaic trochaic octameter, as Poe....floating on opium or laudanum.....bemoaning his teen-romance....whined for brandy and bucks from his rich doctor-friend......This was, oddly enough, sorta inspirational enough to check out Chivers' gravesite at the nearby Decatur Cemetery.......at which, I noted that his burial stones were eerily identical to my great great Grandfather's......who....again, oddly enough.....died about the same time......(another exercise in 'not quite random association'.....that I call, neologistically, 'percolative coloration') Since few have even heard of T.H., I'll post one of his metronomic poems:
"As an egg, when broken, never
Can be mended but must ever
Be the same crushed egg forever—
So shall this dark heart of mine
Which, though broken, is still breaking,
And shall nevermore cease aching
For the sleep which has no waking—
For the sleep which is now thine."
Thomas Holley Chivers
Chivers' greatest work......and that's saying a lot.....was "required reading" when I was a sophomore at The Agrarian Univeristy....Vanderbilt, in Nashville....a half century ago......"Allegra Florence, in Heaven" ...or something like that...... The Professor's Punishment was to have to read some wordy drivel like Chivers' pre-Civil War 'opus': "The Death of the Devil, A Serio-Ludicro, Tragico-Comico, Nigero-Whiteman Extravaganza" or just turn some pages to Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poetic ramblings....... I thought all this 'stuff' really silly.....but the seque from Poe and Chivers.....and Rossetti...and Swinburne.....finally dumped me on the steps of T.S. Elliot and D.H. Lawrence....... The Moral of this Rambling: Look at all the birds in the trees.....otherwise, how would you know which one is the most beautiful....... OR Sometimes one must swim in muddy waters to appreciate the crystal springs...... OR If you think you've seen it all.......Look Again!
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