Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on July 24, 2003 at 09:48:58 from 195.93.32.8 user ACB.
In Reply to: Re: Broadening one's horizons posted by Katharine Edgar on July 24, 2003 at 09:02:31:
A very good point. AR is thick with literary references, particularly in the earlier books. I had overlooked Nansen. "Dorothea looked into The Riddle of the Sands but decided, looking at the maps, that it was not her sort of book." Then, of course, there is this monstrosity:
"The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.
The flames roll'd on...he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He call'd aloud..."Say, father,say
If yet my task is done!"
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
"Speak, father!" once again her cried
"If I may yet be gone!"
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll'd on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death,
In still yet brave despair;
And shouted but one more aloud,
"My father, must I stay?"
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud
The wreathing fires made way,
They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream'd above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder sound...
The boy-oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea.
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part;
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart."
I suppose children were indeed made to get this by rote. Just the sort of poem Aunt Maria would like. I had a lot of trouble finding it, as a child - it had vanished from "literature" by the 1960's!