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<DIV>It's only four lines long:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Presentiment - is that long Shadow - on the Lawn -/</DIV>
<DIV>Indicative that Suns go down - //</DIV>
<DIV>The Notice to the startled Grass/</DIV>
<DIV>That Darkness - is about to pass -</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Now, maybe I've just been reading Wolfe for too long, but those first two
lines in particular seem loaded with Wolfe. "It is possible I already had
some presentiment of my future." 'Presentiment' has always struck me as a
word chosen with particular care. 'Shadow' of course suggests the title of
the first New Sun book. 'On the Lawn' reminds me of the New
Sun-metafiction, 'A Solar Labyrinth.' 'Presentiment,' 'Shadow,' 'Lawn,'
'Suns.' Has Wolfe ever mentioned Ms. Dickinson? If he has, I don't
remember. (And if someone else has already brought this up, sorry!)
But I bet If someone were to peak into his library, they would find a copy of
Emily Dickinson's poems dog-eared on this page. If nothing else, it makes
me think that he chose the word 'presentiment' for the first line of his epic
quite specifically as an allusion to this poem. But the urth is full
of wild theories...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The copy I have lists this as #764, though other copies seem to have a
different numbering system.</DIV></BODY></HTML>