The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck 39 – Cabell · Verses Across
Literature · Fantasy
The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck 39Part 5 · Chapter 4
18
Literature · Fantasy
The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck 39
Part 5 · Chapter 4
CabellEnglish
The colonel burned the malefic letters that afternoon. Indeed, the episode set him to ransacking the desk in which Patricia had found them--a desk which, as you have heard, was heaped with the miscellaneous correspondence of the colonel's father dating back a half-century and more. Much curious matter the colonel discovered there, for "Wild Will" Musgrave's had been a full-blooded career. And over one packet of letters, in particular, the colonel sat for a long while with an unwontedly troubled face.
PART SIX - BYWAYS
"Cry Kismet! and take heart. Eros is gone,
Nor may we follow to that loftier air
Olympians breathe. Take heart, and enter where
A lighter Love, vine-crowned, laughs i' the sun,
Oblivious of tangled webs ill-spun
By ancient wearied weavers, for it may be
His guidance leads to lovers of such as we
And hearts so credulous as to be won.
"Cry Kismet! Put away vain memories
Of all old sorrows and of all old joys,
And learn that life is never quite amiss
So long as unreflective girls and boys
Remember that young lips were meant to kiss,
And hold that laughter is a seemly noise."
