Read Or to Begin Again for Free Online Page A

bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame my fearful symmetry.
    Â 
    Â 
    You’re stealing from Blake.
It’s not a mistake.
I’m a terrible fake.
    Â 
    Â 
    I’m jealous of his Tyger
always burning brighter.
    Â 
    Â 
    All I do is come and go—
I’m all illusion, not much show.
    Â 
    Â 
    You and the Moon seem to be equally dissatisfied. You should be glad to be such a
magical luminous creature. I have no natural light.
    Â 
    Â 
    You have turbines, and ignitions galore,
I’m only an intermittent spark of allure.
I come on for an instant, neither bulb nor orb,
a mere flitting mite with a poor dim light.
    Â 
    Â 
    As it sang, the firefly moved off into the distance.
    Â 
    Â 
    Good-bye, I must fly!
Want to come?
Alice and I
make a fabulous twosome!
    Â 
    Â 
    Alice wondered what the firefly might mean; was she meant to race after it? Already
it was only a blinking spot in the dark. But then, in a rush, she found herself beside
it, hovering.
    Â 
    Â 
    O my, am I flying?
    Â 
    Â 
    Flying thou art
in a fit and a start.
    Â 
    Â 
    Come, come away
before the break of day.
    Â 
    Â 
    Alice wondered if she was still Alice. No one will recognize me now, she thought. I
am one among many and we are all the same. Everywhere she turned, she saw
mirror images, pulsing in the dark just as the stars pulsed above. She realized she
knew nothing about the life cycle of a firefly and wished she had paid better
attention in biology. She had always wanted to fly, ever since Peter Pan, but this
somehow was different; she was stuck in another story the ending to which was not
knowable. I’d rather be reading than being a story, she thought.
    Â 
    Â 
    Reading and being do not rhyme.
You’ll have to do better if we are to be on time.
    Â 
    Â 
    Where are we going?
I hate not knowing.
    Â 
    Â 
    Just follow after.
Let’s head for that rafter.
    Â 
    Â 
    Directions are scarce,
our map is my trace.
    Â 
    Â 
    Let’s wake up the swallow,
he can sing us a tune.
    Â 
    Â 
    I’ll lead, and you follow—
late and soon.
    Â 
    Â 
    I’m breathless and scared
and your rhyming is forced.
Now it is Wordsworth’s
The world is too much with us.
    Â 
    Â 
    Little we see in nature that is ours.
But now, you see, we are one with its prowess.
    Â 
    Â 
    It’s powers, not prowess ! What is your name?
My name is the same as the wishing game.
    Â 
    Â 
    Make a wish double fast!
I wish I were Alice, cried Alice.
    Â 
    Â 
    Alice rhymes with palace !
What fun!
Better a palace
than a barn!
    Â 
    Â 
    Everything that happens is a word.
That’s absurd!
Not if you’re heard!
    Â 
    Â 
    A Peacock appeared then with radiant plumage. It cried its terrible cry and Alice
remembered I remembered the cry of the peacock.
    Â 
    Â 
    Why do you cry?
Because I am so beautiful.
I ravish sight with my azure eyes.
And we all weep together, a hoard of captives.
I am the palace and the prince.
I am the enchanted and the enchanter.
I am the end and the beginning of each day.
    Â 
    Â 
    Then the sun came up then.
    Â 
    Â 
    Alice was not sure if her wish had been granted, and if it had, by whom. She could
not see clearly in the early light whether she was still a winged bug or a girl. She felt
lonely and cold in the damp dew. Beside her, she saw a strange netlike thing
hovering in the grass. It looked, she thought, like a handkerchief dropped by an
angel, immaterial yet visible. Well, she thought, I am still thinking, so I must still be
Alice. The sun began to make the world sparkle around her. The handkerchief
glistened. She reached for it, and as she did, it vanished.
That night, Alice dreamed of cheese, proper names, an elevator, a sad child, and
mistakes. She had lost her address and, since no one was expecting her, she felt a
kind of delirious freedom at the same time as she felt totally alone. She dreamed
that she saw a man she