purpose, and a beginner in literature can gain more from hearing verse than from reading it.”
His father shook his head. “I don’t know, son. Maybe what you are doing has value. You fooled me on the sedimentation theory, and you may fool me on this. Go. Your mind is made up. You’re a Haldane, and nothing I can do can change it.”
He came early to the lecture hall and seated himself on a back row to study the faces of arrivals. As he had surmised, fully eighty per cent of the students in attendance were A-7s, and practically all the full professionals, though without insignia, had the A-7 look, a preoccupied dreaminess; and long-handled cigarette holders were standard equipment for the smokers.
Most of the students came in clusters to the seats, and after the house lights had dimmed, there was an inrush of students from the lobby. He had not spotted Helix, but the bulk of the students came after the lights were dimmed and he was confident that she was among the shadowy figures.
When the light at the lectern came on and the lecturer walked out from the wings, Haldane turned his entire attention to the speaker, a diminutive, bald-headed man in his late sixties with ears that jutted from his head. He leaned back from the lectern and spoke with a voice surprisingly powerful for so small a man.
“My name is Moran. I’m a professor here. My field and my subject for tonight, is the romantic poets of England. As for myself, in the dim past my people came from Ireland. Our family history says that we were barred from the priesthood because a leprechaun got into the Moran cabbage patch. Do you believe that?”
The audience laughed agreement.
“So much for me. Now, for the poets. I will name them and let them speak for themselves.”
Moran did precisely what he said he would.
His readings, delivered in a clear, compelling voice, went beyond meanings and grasped moods and emotions in the lines. Haldane knew from the opening sentence of the first poem that the professor had him hooked.
Moran’s recitation leaped ravines no theory of aesthetics could ever bridge. Helix, in all her beauty and with all her enthusiasm, was only dawn’s glow compared to this man’s full sunrise.
Haldane heard the roar of the River Alph tumbling to a sunless sea, and he knew whom Coleridge had in mind when he wrote:
Weave a circle round him thrice
And close his eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the Milk of Paradise.
Lord Byron spoke to him personally.
He had thought himself fortunate that Keats had died young. In the darkened auditorium, he mourned, now, the death of a poet who could speak with such poignancy and describe with such sweet exactitude “La Belle Dame sans Merci.”
Shelley sang to him. Wordsworth comforted him. His heart danced to the skirling Scottish pipes of Burns.
When the house lights went on and the crowd rose to leave, the mood lingered. There was no hum of voices and no applause. Haldane moved quickly to the lobby to await the exit of Helix.
Eyes that caught his own returned his gaze with gentle sadness, but the eyes of Helix were not among them.
He turned and walked out of the lobby and down the mall into the crisp evening, his feet crunching softly on the fallen leaves. He paused for a moment at the fountain near the center of the campus and said softly to himself:
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering
Though sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
He drew his cloak more tightly around him against the chill and turned the collar up, noticing his shadow sprawled over the granite flagstones surrounding the fountain.
It was a Byronesque shadow, and well it should be. He was one with Byron, with Keats, with Shelley. He had come to find his beloved and had found, instead, the living loves of dead men; yet he was alone.
Earth weary, companioned by poignancy, he turned and walked over the sere grass and beneath the stark limbs of trees that
His father shook his head. “I don’t know, son. Maybe what you are doing has value. You fooled me on the sedimentation theory, and you may fool me on this. Go. Your mind is made up. You’re a Haldane, and nothing I can do can change it.”
He came early to the lecture hall and seated himself on a back row to study the faces of arrivals. As he had surmised, fully eighty per cent of the students in attendance were A-7s, and practically all the full professionals, though without insignia, had the A-7 look, a preoccupied dreaminess; and long-handled cigarette holders were standard equipment for the smokers.
Most of the students came in clusters to the seats, and after the house lights had dimmed, there was an inrush of students from the lobby. He had not spotted Helix, but the bulk of the students came after the lights were dimmed and he was confident that she was among the shadowy figures.
When the light at the lectern came on and the lecturer walked out from the wings, Haldane turned his entire attention to the speaker, a diminutive, bald-headed man in his late sixties with ears that jutted from his head. He leaned back from the lectern and spoke with a voice surprisingly powerful for so small a man.
“My name is Moran. I’m a professor here. My field and my subject for tonight, is the romantic poets of England. As for myself, in the dim past my people came from Ireland. Our family history says that we were barred from the priesthood because a leprechaun got into the Moran cabbage patch. Do you believe that?”
The audience laughed agreement.
“So much for me. Now, for the poets. I will name them and let them speak for themselves.”
Moran did precisely what he said he would.
His readings, delivered in a clear, compelling voice, went beyond meanings and grasped moods and emotions in the lines. Haldane knew from the opening sentence of the first poem that the professor had him hooked.
Moran’s recitation leaped ravines no theory of aesthetics could ever bridge. Helix, in all her beauty and with all her enthusiasm, was only dawn’s glow compared to this man’s full sunrise.
Haldane heard the roar of the River Alph tumbling to a sunless sea, and he knew whom Coleridge had in mind when he wrote:
Weave a circle round him thrice
And close his eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the Milk of Paradise.
Lord Byron spoke to him personally.
He had thought himself fortunate that Keats had died young. In the darkened auditorium, he mourned, now, the death of a poet who could speak with such poignancy and describe with such sweet exactitude “La Belle Dame sans Merci.”
Shelley sang to him. Wordsworth comforted him. His heart danced to the skirling Scottish pipes of Burns.
When the house lights went on and the crowd rose to leave, the mood lingered. There was no hum of voices and no applause. Haldane moved quickly to the lobby to await the exit of Helix.
Eyes that caught his own returned his gaze with gentle sadness, but the eyes of Helix were not among them.
He turned and walked out of the lobby and down the mall into the crisp evening, his feet crunching softly on the fallen leaves. He paused for a moment at the fountain near the center of the campus and said softly to himself:
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering
Though sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
He drew his cloak more tightly around him against the chill and turned the collar up, noticing his shadow sprawled over the granite flagstones surrounding the fountain.
It was a Byronesque shadow, and well it should be. He was one with Byron, with Keats, with Shelley. He had come to find his beloved and had found, instead, the living loves of dead men; yet he was alone.
Earth weary, companioned by poignancy, he turned and walked over the sere grass and beneath the stark limbs of trees that
Similar Books
Five Classic Spenser Mysteries
Robert B. Parker
The Phantom of Black's Cove
Jan Hambright
What Became of the White Savage
Francois Garde
Bearly In Control
Kim Fox
A Midsummer's Nightmare
Kody Keplinger
The Dirty Secret
Kira A. Gold
Devious
Lisa Jackson
Spotless
Camilla Monk
Ghost Country
Sara Paretsky