Wednesday Reading Meme

Currently Reading:

• Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes by Ella Cheever Thayer: Written in 1879, the telegraph exchanges is very similar to internet chatroom. Something is universal over time.
• It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis: I am reading it very slowly because the politics is familiar in a very depressing way.
• Poems by Emily Dickinson: I like how concise and insightful her poems are. 

Recently Finished:

• Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James is a collection of horror stories. The mystery and tension built up through vivid description of the environment and realistic characters. 

What will read next: I am thinking of re-reading William Blake and Christina Rossetti's poems afterwards. 

Tyger by William Blake

2022 is year of Tiger in Chinese culture, so it seems fitting to post a poem about tiger. 

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

 

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

 

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

 

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?