Fun_People Archive
6 Oct
LIT BITS V3 #280

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri,  6 Oct 100 17:32:42 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: LIT BITS V3 #280

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Excerpted-from: LITERARY CALENDAR V3 #280
From: ptervin@pent.yasuda-u.ac.jp

Today is Saturday, 7 October 2000; on this day,

424 years ago (1576),

     English dramatist, John Marston is baptized. His literary career will
     begin in 1598 with _The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image and Certaine
     Satyres_, a callow, erotic poem that would be severely criticized.

281 years ago (1719),

     A pirated installment of Daniel Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ appears in
     _The Original London Post_, the first novel to be serialized.

151 years ago (1849),

     Edgar Allan Poe dies in Baltimore at the age of 40, saying "Lord, help
     my poor soul." His epitaph reads: "Quoth the Raven nevermore."

151 years ago (1849),

     James Whitcomb Riley is born in Greenfield, Indiana. He will remark
     of his poetry: "My work did itself. I'm only the willer bark through
     which the whistle comes."

68 years ago (1932),

     Zelda Fitzgerald's only novel, _Save Me the Waltz_, is published by
     Scribner's. The work receives mixed notices and sells poorly.

Today's poem:

                       A Dream

     In visions of the dark night
     I have dreamed of joy departed--
     But a waking dream of life and light
     Hath left me broken-hearted.

     Ah! what is not a dream by day
     To him whose eyes are cast
     On things around him with a ray
     Turned back upon the past?

     That holy dream--that holy dream,
     While all the world were chiding,
     Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
     A lonely spirit guiding.

     What though that light, thro' storm and night,
     So trembled from afar--
     What could there be more purely bright
     In Truth's day-star?

                                                   Edgar Poe
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