Whose careful eye adjusts the course again
Still shadow at the wheel, his rich cigar
Glowed like a point of rectitude-Mark Twain.
If
ever there were Mississippi nights,
If
ever there was Dixie, as they sing,
Cry, you may cry, for all your true delights
Lost with the banjo and the Chicken Wing
Where old St. Joe slid on the water lights
And on into the dark, diminishing.
LEARNING A DEAD LA NG UA GE
There is nothing for you to say. You must
Learn first to listen. Because it is dead
It
will not come to you of itself, nor would you
Of yourself master it. You must therefore
Learn to be still when it is imparted,
Louis Simpson
And, though you may not yet understand, to remember.
What you remember is saved. To understand
The least thing fully you would have to perceive
The whole grammar in all its accidence
And all its system, in the perfect singleness
Of intention it has because it is dead.
You can learn only a part at a time.
What you are given to remember
Has been saved before you from death's dullness by
Remembering. The unique intention
Of a language whose speech has died is order,
Incomplete only where someone has forgotten.
You will find that that order helps you to remember.
