“Oh Portius! Is there not some chosen curse,
Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven,
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man
Who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin?”
— Joseph Addison, Cato: A Tragedy, 1710
Photo credit: “In a construction site’s sidewalk pedestrian tunnel on Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC.” Mike Maguire, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Headline Publications, Inc.
“It is the just decree of Heaven that a traitor never sees his danger till his ruin is at hand.”
— Pietro Metastasio
Cover B. Marvel Comics.
“The Tower,” by W. H. Auden
(Part IX of “The Quest”)
This is an architecture for the old;
Thus heaven was attacked by the afraid,
So once, unconsciously, a virgin made
Her maidenhead conspicuous to a god.
Here on dark nights while worlds of triumph sleep
Lost Love in abstract speculation burns,
And exiled Will to politics returns
In epic verse that makes its traitors weep.
Yet many come to wish their tower a well;
For those who dread to drown, of thirst may die,
Those who see all become invisible:
Here great magicians, caught in their own spell,
Long for a natural climate as they sigh
“Beware of Magic” to the passer-by.
Belly by Bilbo Baggins, hair by Gandalf the Grey, Eye of goddam Sauron if you comment on either.
I don’t have a middle-aged body, I have a MIDDLE EARTH body.
Print postcard, linen texture.
Rest easy, Chris Irvine — Mary Washington College Class of 1994. Pro Deo Domo Patria.
Chris passed away Sunday following his battle with Covid-19.
Archant. United Kingdom.
