Category: Literature

The time of universal peace is near.
Prove this a prosp'rous day,
the three-nooked world
Shall bear the olive freely.

ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Caesar, in Antony and Cleopatra, act 4, sc. 6, l. 4-6.

Anticipating peace; "Prove this" means "If this prove"; " three-nooked" means three-cornered. Continue reading Caesar, in Antony and Cleopatra

Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885-1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.

Adelaide Crapsey. 1878-1914

72. Triad

THESE be
Three silent things:
The falling snow … the hour
Before the dawn … the mouth of one
Just dead. 5 Continue reading Triad

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321).  The Divine Comedy. The Harvard Classics.  1909–14.

Inferno [Hell]

Canto XVI

ARGUMENT.—Journeying along the pier, which crosses the sand, they are now so near the end of it as to hear the noise of the stream falling into the eighth circle, when they meet the spirits of three military men; who judging Dante, from his dress, to be a countryman of theirs, entreat him to stop. He complies and speaks with them. The two Poets then reach the place where the water descends, being the termination of this third compartment in the seventh circle; and here Virgil, having thrown down into the hollow a cord, wherewith Dante was girt, they behold at that signal a monstrous and horrible figure come swimming up to them.

Continue reading Inferno [Hell]