# Respond to the last poster by quoting a line of poetry **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 1, 2007, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257 "2007-05-01T03:03:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2007, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/81 "2007-05-05T09:41:20Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting] How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him, Shedding white rings of tumult, building high Over the chained bay waters Liberty– Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes As apparitional as sails that cross Some page of figures to be filed away; –Till elevators drop us from our day . . . – Hart Crane, To Brooklyn Bridge [/QUOTE] FOAM flies white over rocks of black, Nights are dark when the boats go down, But souls flit back in the wild winds track, And grey gulls gather in Pentyre Town. Wild, grey gulls in the narrow street, Wheeling, wavering, to and fro, (Dear the echo of banished feet!) Flocking in as the sun sinks low. Pale she stands at her open door, (Dark little streets to a fishing town) Shrill, thin voices from sea and shore Fill the air as the sun goes down. The Ballad of Pentyre Town - Graham B Thompson. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2007, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/82 "2007-05-05T18:01:52Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl] As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: They kill us for their sport. - William Shakespeare, _King Lear_ [/QUOTE] I willed my keepsakes, signed away What portion of me I Could make assignable, and then There interposed a fly, With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see. – Emily Dickinson ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2007, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/83 "2007-05-05T20:03:02Z")
[QUOTE=Sternvogel] I willed my keepsakes, signed away What portion of me I Could make assignable, and then There interposed a fly, With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see. – Emily Dickinson [/QUOTE] Ye durty little devils, don’t ye rub your hands at me! All eyes ye are and buzzing round me table set for tea. The sugar bowl or slop jar to ye `tis all the same. For your seed, breed, and generation I begrudge ye your own name. Fly. Fly. Can ye not hear the fff of sound? or see the shimmer puff of dust as her toes push off the ground? Sure, 'tis lovely how her fingertips and her overarching wings “lie” in the silent currents gliding stillnesses that sing. While ye, ye plaguey craytures, zing about on busy wings glazed like windows in a horse-drawn hearse. Don’t ye turn all-seeing eyes on me and drone your curse and crawl and rub and crawl and rub and buzz your true and ancient Bible name: Beelzebub, Beelzebub. – Margaret Doyle Baltimore, _The Irish Biddy To The Flies_ ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/84 "2007-05-06T03:12:34Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting] Ye durty little devils, don’t ye rub your hands at me! All eyes ye are and buzzing round me table set for tea. – Margaret Doyle Baltimore, _The Irish Biddy To The Flies_ [/QUOTE] Oh demon within, I am afraid and seldom put my hand up to my mouth and stitch it up covering you, smothering you from the public voyeury eyes of my typewriter keys. If i should pawn you, what bullions would they give for you, what pennies, swimming in their copper kisses, what bird on its way to perishing? - Anne Sexton, **Demon** ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/85 "2007-05-06T17:02:49Z")
[QUOTE=elfkin477] Oh demon within, I am afraid and seldom put my hand up to my mouth and stitch it up covering you, smothering you from the public voyeury eyes of my typewriter keys. If i should pawn you, what bullions would they give for you, what pennies, swimming in their copper kisses, what bird on its way to perishing? - Anne Sexton, **Demon** [/QUOTE] the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see beached skulls the song nobody knows because anyone who had heard it is dead, and the others can’t remember. Shall I tell you the secret and if I do, will you get me out of this bird suit? I don’t enjoy it here squatting on this island looking picturesque and mythical with these two feathery maniacs, I don’t enjoy singing this trio, fatal and valuable. I will tell the secret to you, to you, only to you. Come closer. This song is a cry for help: Help me! Only you, only you can, you are unique at last. Alas it is a boring song but it works every time. - Margaret Atwood, “Siren Song” ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/86 "2007-05-06T21:07:23Z")
[QUOTE=HazelNutCoffee] This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see beached skulls the song nobody knows because anyone who had heard it is dead, and the others can’t remember. Shall I tell you the secret and if I do, will you get me out of this bird suit? I don’t enjoy it here squatting on this island looking picturesque and mythical with these two feathery maniacs, I don’t enjoy singing this trio, fatal and valuable. I will tell the secret to you, to you, only to you. Come closer. This song is a cry for help: Help me! Only you, only you can, you are unique at last. Alas it is a boring song but it works every time. - Margaret Atwood, “Siren Song” [/QUOTE] Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O, well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still! Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/87 "2007-05-06T21:44:38Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting] Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O, well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still! Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. – Alfred Lord Tennyson, _Break, Break, Break_ [/QUOTE] I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume and the seagulls crying. I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry [tale]1 from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over. John Masefield ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/88 "2007-05-06T21:52:49Z")
_He hath no heart for harping, nor in ring-having Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world’s delight Nor any whit else save the wave’s slash, Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water. Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries, Fields to fairness, land fares brisker, All this admonisheth man eager of mood, The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks On flood-ways to be far departing._ – “The Seafarer,” by Some Anglo-Saxon Dude, trans. Ezra Pound ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/89 "2007-05-06T22:08:48Z")
[QUOTE=Fretful Porpentine] _He hath no heart for harping, nor in ring-having Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world’s delight Nor any whit else save the wave’s slash, Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water. Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries, Fields to fairness, land fares brisker, All this admonisheth man eager of mood, The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks On flood-ways to be far departing._ – “The Seafarer,” by Some Anglo-Saxon Dude, trans. Ezra Pound [/QUOTE] I cannot rest from travel; I will drink Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy’d Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea. I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honor’d of them all,– And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. – _Ulysses_ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ---
**Author:** ![misling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ab097/32.png) [@misling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misling)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/90 "2007-05-07T01:45:34Z")
[QUOTE=Sternvogel] … For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known,-- … – _Ulysses_ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson [/QUOTE] e.e. cummings All in green went my love riding on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn. four lean hounds crouched low and smiling the merry deer ran before. Fleeter be they than dappled dreams the swift sweet deer the red rare deer. Horn at hip went my love riding riding the echo down into the silver dawn. four lean hounds crouched low and smiling the level meadows ran before. Softer be they than slippered sleep the lean lithe deer the fleet flown deer. Four fleet does at a gold valley the famished arrows sang before. Bow at belt went my love riding riding the mountain down into the silver dawn. four lean hounds crouched low and smiling the sheer peaks ran before. Paler be they than daunting death the sleek slim deer the tall tense deer. Four tall stags at a green mountain the lucky hunter sang before. All in green went my love riding on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn. four lean hounds crouched low and smiling my heart fell dead before. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/91 "2007-05-07T01:54:33Z")
[QUOTE=misling] e.e. cummings … All in green went my love riding on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn. four lean hounds crouched low and smiling my heart fell dead before. [/QUOTE] The silence of a place where there were once horses is a mountain and I have seen by lightning that every mountain once fell from the air ringing like the chime of an iron shoe high on the cloudy slope riders who long ago abandoned sadness leaving its rotting fences and its grapes to fall have entered the pass and are gazing into the next valley I do not see them cross over I see that I will be lying in the lightning on an alp of death and out of my eyes horsemen will be riding –W.S. Merwin ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/92 "2007-05-07T18:44:50Z")
[QUOTE=gallows fodder] . . . I see that I will be lying in the lightning on an alp of death and out of my eyes horsemen will be riding –W.S. Merwin [/QUOTE] “Happy is the man who reads, and happy those who listen to the words of this prophecy and heed what is written in it.” Revelation 1:3 And were these horsemen riding abreast Banners and flags unfurled Arrive as one at the very crest What be the fate of the world? For it is said of this relative measure Both Good and Evil stand a chance Were we by fortune to find man’s treasure There a dove and a lance! War exists because we will it so Nothing more monotonous than Peace Till grow weary trading blow for blow Will the shedding of blood ever cease! Don’t we revel and the blood flow hot When attacked and maimed in the fray Our leaders stand erect, give all they’ve got And ask for revenge when they pray? ‘Tis certain as the succeeding season That yin and yang alternate Halcyon peace directed by reason Cruelly interrupted by Fate – Mac McAnear, _Prologue to the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse_ ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/93 "2007-05-07T19:01:26Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting] Don’t we revel and the blood flow hot When attacked and maimed in the fray Our leaders stand erect, give all they’ve got And ask for revenge when they pray? – Mac McAnear, _Prologue to the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse_ [/QUOTE] If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; _Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori._ – Wilfred Owen, _Dulce et Decorum Est_ ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/94 "2007-05-08T00:57:59Z")
[QUOTE=Sternvogel] If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; _Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori._ – Wilfred Owen, _Dulce et Decorum Est_ [/QUOTE] When the guns lay silent and my weapon rests When morning comes and greets me and puts medals on my chest; I will weep and remember. Don’t ask me why I cry for I might have to tell, Show you what’s inside of me; the visions I have of hell. For all that’s lost I remember now And pain it racks my brow. The eyes have seen the darkness fall, and I felt the fear of men And here I am in desert waste, preparing for home again. Where is the Angel that guided me? Where is the spirit true? Where is the love that I have lost? My darling where are you? – PrivatePoet, _Poem from Iraq_ ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/95 "2007-05-08T01:45:33Z")
For I had changed, or she had changed, Though true loves both had been, Even while we kissed we stood estranged With the ghosts of war between. We had not met but a moment ere War baffled joy, and cried, ‘Love’s but a madness, a burnt flare; The shell’s a madman’s bride.’ - Edmund Blunden, “Reunion in War” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/96 "2007-05-08T01:56:14Z")
[QUOTE=Fretful Porpentine] For I had changed, or she had changed, Though true loves both had been, Even while we kissed we stood estranged With the ghosts of war between. We had not met but a moment ere War baffled joy, and cried, ‘Love’s but a madness, a burnt flare; The shell’s a madman’s bride.’ - Edmund Blunden, “Reunion in War” [/QUOTE] Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . . Up, up the long, delirious burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or ever eagle flew — And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. — High Flight, John Gillespie Magee, Jr ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/97 "2007-05-08T04:13:29Z")
> [@](#): > > **Little Plastic Ninja** : > > Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth > And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; > Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth > Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things > You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung > High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, > I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung > My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . . > > Up, up the long, delirious burning blue > I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace > Where never lark, or ever eagle flew — > And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod > The high untrespassed sanctity of space, > Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. > > — High Flight, John Gillespie Magee, Jr …Ride a wild horse against the sky - hold tight to his wings before you die whatever else you leave undone once ride a wild horse into the sun. – Hannah Kahn ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/98 "2007-05-08T04:31:50Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] …Ride a wild horse against the sky - hold tight to his wings before you die whatever else you leave undone once ride a wild horse into the sun. – Hannah Kahn [/QUOTE] [. . .] Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. - Alfred Tennyson, “Ulysses” ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/99 "2007-05-08T08:43:42Z")
Sunset and evening star And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar When I put out to sea; But such a tide as moving seems asleep Too full for sound or foam When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell When I embark. For though from out our bourne of Time and Space The flood may bear me far I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar. Alfred, Lord Tennyson: _Crossing the Bar_ ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/100 "2007-05-08T18:37:51Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra] Sunset and evening star And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar When I put out to sea; But such a tide as moving seems asleep Too full for sound or foam When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. . . . Alfred, Lord Tennyson: _Crossing the Bar_ [/QUOTE] We sail out of season into on oyster-gray wind, over a terrible hardness. Where Dickens crossed with mal de mer in twenty weeks or twenty days I cross toward him in five. Wraped in robes– not like Caesar but like liver with bacon– I rest on the stern burning my mouth with a wind-hot ash, watching my ship bypass the swells as easily as an old woman reads a palm. I think; as I look North, that a field of mules lay down to die. The ship is 27 hours out. I have entered her. She might be a whale, sleeping 2000 and ship’s company, the last 40¢ martini and steel staterooms where night goes on forever. Being inside them is, I think, the way one would dig into a planet and forget the word light. I have walked cities, miles of mole alleys with carpets. Inside I have been ten girls who speak French. They languish everywhere like bedsheets. Oh my Atlantic of the cracked shores, those blemished gates of Rockport and Boothbay, those harbor smells like the innards of animals! Old childish Queen, where did you go, you bayer at wharfs and Victorian houses? I have read each page of my mother’s voyage. I have read each page of her mother’s voyage. I have learned their words as they learned Dickens’. I have swallowed these words like bullets. But I have forgotten the last guest–terror. Unlike them, I cannot toss in the cabin as in childbirth. Now always leaving me in the West is the wake, a ragged bridal veil, unexplained, seductive, always rushing down the stairs, never detained, never enough. The ship goes on as though nothing else were happening. Generation after generation, I go her way. She will run East, knot by knot, over an old bloodstream, stripping it clear, each hour ripping it, pounding, pounding, forcing through as through a virgin. Oh she is so quick! This dead street never stops! – Anne Sexton, _Crossing The Atlantic_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257.md?page=4)