A Child’s Story

Hamelin Town’s in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.

Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook’s own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

At last the people in a body
To the Town Hall came flocking:
“’Tis clear,” cried they, “our Mayor’s a noddy;
And as for our Corporation—shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can’t or won’t determine
What’s best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you’re old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we’re lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we’ll send you packing!”
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.

An hour they sate in council,
At length the Mayor broke silence:
“For a guilder I’d my ermine gown sell;
I wish I were a mile hence!
It’s easy to bid one rack one’s brain—
I’m sure my poor head aches again
I’ve scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!”
Just as he said this, what should hap
At the chamber door but a gentle tap?
“Bless us,” cried the Mayor, “what’s that?”
(With the Corporation as he sat,
Looking little though wondrous fat;
Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister
Than a too-long-opened oyster,
Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous
For a plate of turtle green and glutinous)
“Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!”

“Come in!”—the Mayor cried, looking bigger:
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red;
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out and in—
There was no guessing his kith and kin!
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire:
Quoth one: “It’s as my great-grandsire,
Starting up at the Trump of Doom’s tone,
Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!”

He advanced to the council-table:
And, “Please your honours,” said he, “I’m able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures living beneath the sun,
That creep or swim or fly or run,
After me so as you never saw!
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that do people harm,
The mole and toad and newt and viper;
And people call me the Pied Piper.”
(And here they noticed round his neck
A scarf of red and yellow stripe,
To match with his coat of the selfsame cheque;
And at the scarf’s end hung a pipe;
And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying
As if impatient to be playing
Upon this pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old-fangled.)
“Yet,” said he, “poor piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,
Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;
I eased in Asia the Nizam
Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats;
And, as for what your brain bewilders,
If I can rid your town of rats
Will you give me a thousand guilders?”
“One? fifty thousand!”—was the exclamation
Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

Into the street the Piper stepped,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
In his quiet pipe the while;
Then, like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled
Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives—
Followed the Piper for their lives.
From street to street he piped advancing,
And step for step they followed dancing,
Until they came to the river Weser,
Wherein all plunged and perished!
- Save one who, stout a Julius Caesar,
Swam across and lived to carry
(As he, the manuscript he cherished)
To Rat-land home his commentary:
Which was, “At the first shrill notes of the pipe
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples, wondrous ripe,
Into a cider-press’s gripe:
And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,
And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,
And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,
And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks;
And it seemed as if a voice
(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery
Is breathed) called out ‘Oh, rats, rejoice!
The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!
So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!’
And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,
All ready staved, like a great sun shone
Glorious scarce and inch before me,
Just as methought it said ‘Come, bore me!’
- I found the Weser rolling o’er me.”

You should have heard the Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.
“Go,” cried the Mayor, “and get long poles!
Poke out the nests and block up the holes!
Consult with carpenters and builders,
And leave in our town not even a trace
Of the rats!”—when suddenly, up the face
Of the Piper perked in the market-place,
With a, “First, if you please, my thousand guilders!”

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation too.
For council dinners made rare havoc
With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar’s biggest **** with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gypsy coat of red and yellow!
“Beside,” quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,
“Our business was done at the river’s brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what’s dead can’t come to life, I think.
So, friend, we’re not the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you something for drink,
And a matter of money to put in your poke;
But, as for the guilders, what we spoke
Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.
Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.
A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!”

The Piper’s face fell, and he cried
“No trifling! I can’t wait, beside!
I’ve promised to visit by dinner-time
Bagdat, and accept the prime
Of the Head Cook’s pottage, all he’s rich in,
For having left, in the Calip’s kitchen,
Of a nest of scorpions no survivor—
With him I proved no bargain-driver,
With you, don’t think I’ll bate a stiver!
And folks who put me in a passion
May find me pipe to another fashion.”

“How?” cried the Mayor, “d’ye think I’ll brook
Being worse treated than a Cook?
Insulted by a lazy ribald
With idle pipe and vesture piebald?
You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst,
Blow your pipe there till you burst!”

Once more he stepped into the street;
And to his lips again
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;
And ere he blew three notes (such sweet
Soft notes as yet musician’s cunning
Never gave the enraptured air)
There was a rustling, that seemed like a bustling
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling,
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering,
And, like fowls in a farmyard when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood,
Unable to move a step, or cry
To the children merrily skipping by—
And could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper’s back.
But how the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council’s bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However he turned from South to West,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.
“He never can cross that mighty top!
He’s forced to let the piping drop,
And we shall see our children stop!”
When, lo, as they reached the mountain’s side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and the children followed,
And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain-side shut fast.
Did I say, all? No! One was lame,
And could not dance the whole of the way;
And in after years, if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say,—
“It’s dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can’t forget that I’m bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me:
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey-bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles’ wings:
And just as I became assured
My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the Hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before,
And never hear of that country more!”

Alas, alas for Hamelin!
There came into many a burgher’s pate
A text which says, that Heaven’s Gate
Opes to the Rich at as easy rate
As the needle’s eye takes a camel in!
The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,
To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,
Wherever it was men’s lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart’s content,
If he’d only return the way he went,
And bring the children behind him.
But when they saw ’twas a lost endeavour,
And Piper and dancers were gone for ever,
They made a decree that lawyers never
Should think their records dated duly
If, after the day of the month and year,
These words did not as well appear,
“And so long after what happened here
On the Twenty-second of July,
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six”:
And the better in memory to fix
The place of the children’s last retreat,
They called it, the Pied Piper’s Street—
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor
Was sure for the future to lose his labour.
Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern
To shock with mirth a street so solemn;
But opposite the place of the cavern
They wrote the story on a column,
And on the great Church-Window painted
The same, to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away;
And there it stands to this very day.
And I must not omit to say
That in Transylvania there’s a tribe
Of alien people that ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress
On which their neighbours lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
But how or why, they don’t understand.

So, *****, let you and me be wipers
Of scores out with all men—especially pipers:
And, whether they pipe us free, from rats or from mice,
If we’ve promised them aught, let us keep our promise.

Muse of the many-twinkling feet! whose charms
Are now extended up from legs to arms;
Terpsichore!—too long misdeemed a maid—
Reproachful term—bestowed but to upbraid—
Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine,
The least a Vestal of the ****** Nine.
Far be from thee and thine the name of *****:
Mocked yet triumphant; sneered at, unsubdued;
Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,
If but thy coats are reasonably high!
Thy breast—if bare enough—requires no shield;
Dance forth—sans armour thou shalt take the field
And own—impregnable to most assaults,
Thy not too lawfully begotten “Waltz.”

  Hail, nimble Nymph! to whom the young hussar,
The whiskered votary of Waltz and War,
His night devotes, despite of spur and boots;
A sight unmatched since Orpheus and his brutes:
Hail, spirit-stirring Waltz!—beneath whose banners
A modern hero fought for modish manners;
On Hounslow’s heath to rival Wellesley’s fame,
Cocked, fired, and missed his man—but gained his aim;
Hail, moving muse! to whom the fair one’s breast
Gives all it can, and bids us take the rest.
Oh! for the flow of Busby, or of Fitz,
The latter’s loyalty, the former’s wits,
To “energise the object I pursue,”
And give both Belial and his Dance their due!

  Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine
(Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine),
Long be thine import from all duty free,
And Hock itself be less esteemed than thee;
In some few qualities alike—for Hock
Improves our cellar—thou our living stock.
The head to Hock belongs—thy subtler art
Intoxicates alone the heedless heart:
Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims,
And wakes to Wantonness the willing limbs.

  Oh, Germany! how much to thee we owe,
As heaven-born Pitt can testify below,
Ere cursed Confederation made thee France’s,
And only left us thy d—d debts and dances!
Of subsidies and Hanover bereft,
We bless thee still—George the Third is left!
Of kings the best—and last, not least in worth,
For graciously begetting George the Fourth.
To Germany, and Highnesses serene,
Who owe us millions—don’t we owe the Queen?
To Germany, what owe we not besides?
So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides;
Who paid for ******, with her royal blood,
Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud:
Who sent us—so be pardoned all her faults—
A dozen dukes, some kings, a Queen—and Waltz.

  But peace to her—her Emperor and Diet,
Though now transferred to Buonapartè’s “fiat!”
Back to my theme—O muse of Motion! say,
How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way?

  Borne on the breath of Hyperborean gales,
From Hamburg’s port (while Hamburg yet had mails),
Ere yet unlucky Fame—compelled to creep
To snowy Gottenburg-was chilled to sleep;
Or, starting from her slumbers, deigned arise,
Heligoland! to stock thy mart with lies;
While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send,
Nor owed her fiery Exit to a friend,
She came—Waltz came—and with her certain sets
Of true despatches, and as true Gazettes;
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match
And—almost crushed beneath the glorious news—
Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue’s;
One envoy’s letters, six composer’s airs,
And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs:
Meiners’ four volumes upon Womankind,
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind;
Brunck’s heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it,
Of Heynè, such as should not sink the packet.

  Fraught with this cargo—and her fairest freight,
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a Mate,
The welcome vessel reached the genial strand,
And round her flocked the daughters of the land.
Not decent David, when, before the ark,
His grand Pas-seul excited some remark;
Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought
The knight’s Fandango friskier than it ought;
Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread,
Her nimble feet danced off another’s head;
Not Cleopatra on her Galley’s Deck,
Displayed so much of leg or more of neck,
Than Thou, ambrosial Waltz, when first the Moon
Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune!

  To You, ye husbands of ten years! whose brows
Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse;
To you of nine years less, who only bear
The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear,
With added ornaments around them rolled
Of native brass, or law-awarded gold;
To You, ye Matrons, ever on the watch
To mar a son’s, or make a daughter’s match;
To You, ye children of—whom chance accords—
Always the Ladies, and sometimes their Lords;
To You, ye single gentlemen, who seek
Torments for life, or pleasures for a week;
As Love or ***** your endeavours guide,
To gain your own, or ****** another’s bride;—
To one and all the lovely Stranger came,
And every Ball-room echoes with her name.

  Endearing Waltz!—to thy more melting tune
Bow Irish Jig, and ancient Rigadoon.
Scotch reels, avaunt! and Country-dance forego
Your future claims to each fantastic toe!
Waltz—Waltz alone—both legs and arms demands,
Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands;
Hands which may freely range in public sight
Where ne’er before—but—pray “put out the light.”
Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier
Shines much too far—or I am much too near;
And true, though strange—Waltz whispers this remark,
“My slippery steps are safest in the dark!”
But here the Muse with due decorum halts,
And lends her longest petticoat to “Waltz.”

  Observant Travellers of every time!
Ye Quartos published upon every clime!
0 say, shall dull Romaika’s heavy round,
Fandango’s wriggle, or Bolero’s bound;
Can Egypt’s Almas—tantalising group—
Columbia’s caperers to the warlike Whoop—
Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn
With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be born?
Ah, no! from Morier’s pages down to Galt’s,
Each tourist pens a paragraph for “Waltz.”

  Shades of those Belles whose reign began of yore,
With George the Third’s—and ended long before!—
Though in your daughters’ daughters yet you thrive,
Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive!
Back to the Ball-room speed your spectred host,
Fool’s Paradise is dull to that you lost.
No treacherous powder bids Conjecture quake;
No stiff-starched stays make meddling fingers ache;
(Transferred to those ambiguous things that ape
Goats in their visage, women in their shape;)
No damsel faints when rather closely pressed,
But more caressing seems when most caressed;
Superfluous Hartshorn, and reviving Salts,
Both banished by the sovereign cordial “Waltz.”

  Seductive Waltz!—though on thy native shore
Even Werter’s self proclaimed thee half a *****;
Werter—to decent vice though much inclined,
Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind—
Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Staël,
Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball;
The fashion hails—from Countesses to Queens,
And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes;
Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads,
And turns—if nothing else—at least our heads;
With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce,
And cockney’s practise what they can’t pronounce.
Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts,
And Rhyme finds partner Rhyme in praise of “Waltz!”
Blest was the time Waltz chose for her début!
The Court, the Regent, like herself were new;
New face for friends, for foes some new rewards;
New ornaments for black-and royal Guards;
New laws to hang the rogues that roared for bread;
New coins (most new) to follow those that fled;
New victories—nor can we prize them less,
Though Jenky wonders at his own success;
New wars, because the old succeed so well,
That most survivors envy those who fell;
New mistresses—no, old—and yet ’tis true,
Though they be old, the thing is something new;
Each new, quite new—(except some ancient tricks),
New white-sticks—gold-sticks—broom-sticks—all new sticks!
With vests or ribands—decked alike in hue,
New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue:
So saith the Muse: my——, what say you?
Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain
Her new preferments in this novel reign;
Such was the time, nor ever yet was such;
Hoops are  more, and petticoats not much;
Morals and Minuets, Virtue and her stays,
And tell-tale powder—all have had their days.
The Ball begins—the honours of the house
First duly done by daughter or by spouse,
Some Potentate—or royal or serene—
With Kent’s gay grace, or sapient Gloster’s mien,
Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush
Might once have been mistaken for a blush.
From where the garb just leaves the ***** free,
That spot where hearts were once supposed to be;
Round all the confines of the yielded waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced:
The lady’s in return may grasp as much
As princely paunches offer to her touch.
Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip
One hand reposing on the royal hip!
The other to the shoulder no less royal
Ascending with affection truly loyal!
Thus front to front the partners move or stand,
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand;
And all in turn may follow in their rank,
The Earl of—Asterisk—and Lady—Blank;
Sir—Such-a-one—with those of fashion’s host,
For whose blest surnames—vide “Morning Post.”
(Or if for that impartial print too late,
Search Doctors’ Commons six months from my date)—
Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow,
The genial contact gently undergo;
Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk,
If “nothing follows all this palming work?”
True, honest Mirza!—you may trust my rhyme—
Something does follow at a fitter time;
The breast thus publicly resigned to man,
In private may resist him—if it can.

  O ye who loved our Grandmothers of yore,
Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, and many more!
And thou, my Prince! whose sovereign taste and will
It is to love the lovely beldames still!
Thou Ghost of Queensberry! whose judging Sprite
Satan may spare to peep a single night,
Pronounce—if ever in your days of bliss
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this;
To teach the young ideas how to rise,
Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes;
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame,
With half-told wish, and ill-dissembled flame,
For prurient Nature still will storm the breast—
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?

  But ye—who never felt a single thought
For what our Morals are to be, or ought;
Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,
Say—would you make those beauties quite so cheap?
Hot from the hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side,
Where were the rapture then to clasp the form
From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm?
At once Love’s most endearing thought resign,
To press the hand so pressed by none but thine;
To gaze upon that eye which never met
Another’s ardent look without regret;
Approach the lip which all, without restraint,
Come near enough—if not to touch—to taint;
If such thou lovest—love her then no more,
Or give—like her—caresses to a score;
Her Mind with these is gone, and with it go
The little left behind it to bestow.

  Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme?
Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme.
Terpsichore forgive!—at every Ball
My wife now waltzes—and my daughters shall;
My son—(or stop—’tis needless to inquire—
These little accidents should ne’er transpire;
Some ages hence our genealogic tree
Will wear as green a bough for him as me)—
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends
Grandsons for me—in heirs to all his friends.

i've seen a u.f.o.,
yep - a weird orb - hardly a helicopter -
and hardly an aeroplane -
i disclosed it once to a "friend" -
   apparently in europe the entirety of
the oddness of the universe can be caged in
the mind of a psychiatrist - that's europe -
apparently every odd observation
requires the secular
"priesthood" of psychiatry -
everything, has, to, be: normalised;
the sort of *******-tickle-talk
that allows you to return
to talking about the weather...
or yesterday's eastenders episode
on the by pedohpilia bankrupt
b.b.c.
  so? **** it, play along:
the funny people will crack any
time soon...
         even though i have seen
an u.f.o. i'm sticking the the british
take on "sensibility" i.e. lying.
so this paddy walks up to me,
a british citizen like any other,
but has this "royal" airiness around
him...
  he thinks i'm mere peasant
and he's a ******* monarch!
          he suddenly think i can't
comprehend english...
but he can... then i ask him
to recite the alphabet... paddy can't!
sure, you see a u.f.o. when
you have to immediately curb your
enthusiasm, because you're in
europe, and europe is "sensible" -
     so you practice your sense &
sensibility: see no evil, hear no evil,
speak no evil: but **** me:
think up a tier of horror
                  above the holocaust!
if we're allowing science fiction,
if we're allowing the "dream"
but never the reality,
  if europe discarded idiot priest
for a psychiatrist,
i'd probably prefer the idiot priesthood
to the secular "priesthood" that's
psychiatry...
        i've seen an u.f.o.,
but as you might expect, i'm "european",
i'm supposed to be the sensible one,
the never: over-fluttering in
excitement -
                       ****, i saw a u.f.o.
actually means: i saw ****, nothing
really happened.
            i'm occupied, the drinking is
hardly a drag, and the music i'm listening
to isn't that bad, after all;
hell, i must have been drunk watching
this electric light orchestra "glyph"...
you start to try to convince people,
   when the people try to convince themselves
belonging to some day-to-day
everyday mundane collective "sanity" -
**** it, you do what you have to.
a bit like this "surprise" regarding the
transgender movement...
         3 year old trannies...
   ever read r. d. laing's the politics of
experience and the the bird of paradise?
i hope to hell that r. d. laing will overshadow
freud, perhaps even jung...
after all: what glasgow giveth one
does not dismiss so easily...
                not without a brawling
spectacle in the back alley...
     what glasgow offers: one does not discard
even upon a 2nd reading.
                 and this is truly a topic of
the proper regard:
          all of politics is an aspect of experience -
as ever, with respect to heidegger:
   there's there-being -
but there's also mit-sein:
     with being, i.e. what?
                           mit-sein has no actual
coordinate to ensure a contract of
analogues -
             not a flat earth my aß...
you ever navigated a car via
    antwerp, eindhoven, venlo, duisburg,
  essen, dortmund, hamm, bielefeld, hanover?      
that serpentine is a ******* killer...
you travel east from that muddle of roads
you'll be a ******* general of the boyscouts...
      no, no GPS... play god, looking down
on a paper, yes, paper map!
            navigate that ****!
       oh right, 3 year olds and trannies...
why the surprise?

       jesus said to them:

   when you make the two one, and
when you make the inner as the outer
and the outer as the inner and the above
as the below, and when you make the male
and female into a single one,
      so that the male will not be male
and the female not be female, when you
make eyes in the place of an eye,
          and a hand in the place of a hand,
and a foot in the place of a foot,
        and an image in the place of an image,
then shall you enter the kingdom.
    (the gospel according to doubting thomas) -

so... trannies?  
              
      a ******* elephant in the room...
it's almost like people don't want to cite
where this entire zeitgeist furore originated from,
i.e. from the "heretical" gospels of
the "lesser" followers of "christ"...
         by now the whole affair
is staring me in the face with burning
coal-eyes...
            if only the nag hammadi
library was found in modern day israel,
and not egypt, and not the story of
the flight of joseph and mary to egypt -
   and not the account of the secular historian
josephus in the reign of nero,
   and the book of revelation ref. nero
rather than augustus...
               hey, i inherited this crap...
even though the old testament is ridiculous,
at least it's only so "ridiculous"
as to be "ridiculous" given the time-frame...
the new testament is just a blatant lie...
a blatant greek lie...
        it's the nadir of what came prior,
i.e. the excellence of poetic harvesting by
the greeks -
         the new testament is a death of poetics -
a religion carved out of:
    the uninhibited testimony of
ever perpetuating the hunger for the next
groove messiah...
       odd, jesus christ perpetuated -
             moses christ sounds a tad bit sour...

never mind, perhaps, sometime in america,
as it stands, in europe, we're stressing
keeping up appearances,
  we're being sensible,
                  we're being the apparently
"well-attired" -
                  there's a "we" that has agreed
upon the secular priesthood of psychiatry,
i'll just ask,
    is it worth the spectacular,
given that so many people are gambling
with the mundane?
       so? shut up, and try to laugh internally;
it didn't help me having either 1 of
the 5 senses to craft an account of
an oddity...
     i was told to step back into line...

   and this, by ordinary civilians...
           i'm pretty sure that army personnel are
more liberal to such odd events, than
your everyday grey-day joe:
you know the guy, you pass about 100 of them
in an urban environment:
that face, so unmemorable that it's almost
like looking at a concrete slab.

- you've seen a u.f.o.?!
- nope, i must have been blind drunk hallucinating,
  sorry to disappoint, ol' chap.

There are sketches on the walls of men and women and ducks,
and outside a large green bus swerves through traffic like
insanity sprung from a waving line; Turgenev, Turgenev,
says the radio, and Jane Austin, Jane Austin, too.
"I am going to do her portrait on the 28th, while you are
at work."
He is just this edge of fat and he walks constantly, he
fritters; they have him; they are eating him hollow like
a webbed fly, and his eyes are red-suckled with anger-fear.
He feels hatred and discard of the world, sharper than
his razor, and his gut-feel hangs like a wet polyp; and he
self-decisions himself defeated trying to shake his
hung beard from razor in water (like life), not warm enough.
Daumier. Rue Transonian, le 15 Avril, 1843. (lithograph.)
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale.
"She has a face unlike that of any woman I have ever known."
"What is it? A love affair?"
"Silly. I can't love a woman. Besides, she's pregnant."
I can paint- a flower eaten by a snake; that sunlight is a
lie; and that markets smell of shoes and naked boys clothed,
and that under everything some river, some beat, some twist that
clambers along the edge of my temple and bites nip-dizzy. . .
men drive cars and paint their houses,
but they are mad; men sit in barber chairs; buy hats.
Corot. Recollection of Mortefontaine.
Paris, Louvre.
"I must write Kaiser, though I think he's a homosexual."
"Are you still reading Freud?"
"Page 299."
She made a little hat and he fastened two snaps under one
arm, reaching up from the bed like a long feeler from the
snail, and she went to church, and he thought now I h've
time and the dog.
About church: the trouble with a mask is it
never changes.
So rude the flowers that grow and do not grow beautiful.
So magic the chair on the patio that does not hold legs
and belly and arm and neck and mouth that bites into the
wind like the ned of a tunnel.
He turned in bed and thought: I am searching for some
segment in the air. It floats about the peoples heads.
When it rains on the trees it sits between the branches
warmer and more blood-real than the dove.
Orozco. Christ Destroying the Cross.
Hanover, Dartmouth College, Baker Library.
He burned away in his sleep.

I knew you forever and you were always old,
soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold
me for sitting up late, reading your letters,
as if these foreign postmarks were meant for me.
You posted them first in London, wearing furs
and a new dress in the winter of eighteen-ninety.
I read how London is dull on Lord Mayor's Day,
where you guided past groups of robbers, the sad holes
of Whitechapel, clutching your pocketbook, on the way
to Jack the Ripper dissecting his famous bones.
This Wednesday in Berlin, you say, you will
go to a bazaar at Bismarck's house. And I
see you as a young girl in a good world still,
writing three generations before mine. I try
to reach into your page and breathe it back...
but life is a trick, life is a kitten in a sack.
This is the sack of time your death vacates.
How distant your are on your nickel-plated skates
in the skating park in Berlin, gliding past
me with your Count, while a military band
plays a Strauss waltz. I loved you last,
a pleated old lady with a crooked hand.
Once you read Lohengrin and every goose
hung high while you practiced castle life
in Hanover. Tonight your letters reduce
history to a guess. The count had a wife.
You were the old maid aunt who lived with us.
Tonight I read how the winter howled around
the towers of Schloss Schwobber, how the tedious
language grew in your jaw, how you loved the sound
of the music of the rats tapping on the stone
floors. When you were mine you wore an earphone.
This is Wednesday, May 9th, near Lucerne,
Switzerland, sixty-nine years ago. I learn
your first climb up Mount San Salvatore;
this is the rocky path, the hole in your shoes,
the yankee girl, the iron interior
of her sweet body. You let the Count choose
your next climb. You went together, armed
with alpine stocks, with ham sandwiches
and seltzer wasser. You were not alarmed
by the thick woods of briars and bushes,
nor the rugged cliff, nor the first vertigo
up over Lake Lucerne. The Count sweated
with his coat off as you waded through top snow.
He held your hand and kissed you. You rattled
down on the train to catch a steam boat for home;
or other postmarks: Paris, verona, Rome.
This is Italy. You learn its mother tongue.
I read how you walked on the Palatine among
the ruins of the palace of the Caesars;
alone in the Roman autumn, alone since July.
When you were mine they wrapped you out of here
with your best hat over your face. I cried
because I was seventeen. I am older now.
I read how your student ticket admitted you
into the private chapel of the Vatican and how
you cheered with the others, as we used to do
on the fourth of July. One Wednesday in November
you watched a balloon, painted like a silver abll,
float up over the Forum, up over the lost emperors,
to shiver its little modern cage in an occasional
breeze. You worked your New England conscience out
beside artisans, chestnut vendors and the devout.
Tonight I will learn to love you twice;
learn your first days, your mid-Victorian face.
Tonight I will speak up and interrupt
your letters, warning you that wars are coming,
that the Count will die, that you will accept
your America back to live like a prim thing
on the farm in Maine. I tell you, you will come
here, to the suburbs of Boston, to see the blue-nose
world go drunk each night, to see the handsome
children jitterbug, to feel your left ear close
one Friday at Symphony. And I tell you,
you will tip your boot feet out of that hall,
rocking from its sour sound, out onto
the crowded street, letting your spectacles fall
and your hair net tangle as you stop passers-by
to mumble your guilty love while your ears die.

Anonymous  (1730s ?)

In good King Charles's golden days,
When Loyalty no harm meant;
A Furious High-Church man I was,
And so I gain'd Preferment.
Unto my Flock I daily Preached,
Kings are by God appointed,
And ****'d are those who dare resist,
Or touch the Lord's Anointed.

And this is law, I will maintain
Unto my Dying Day, Sir.
That whatsoever King may reign,
I shall be Vicar of Bray, Sir!

When Royal James possessed the crown,
And popery grew in fashion;
The Penal Law I hooted down,
And read the Declaration:
The Church of Rome I found would fit
Full well my Constitution,
And I had been a Jesuit,
But for the Revolution.

 And this is Law, &c.

When William our Deliverer came,
To heal the Nation's Grievance,
I turned the Cat in Pan again,
And swore to him Allegiance:
Old Principles I did revoke,
Set conscience at a distance,
Passive Obedience is a Joke,
A Jest is non-resistance.

  And this is Law, &c.;

When Royal Ann became our Queen,
Then Church of England's Glory,
Another face of things was seen,
And I became a Tory:
Occasional Conformists base
I ****'d, and Moderation,
And thought the Church in danger was,
From such Prevarication.

  And this is Law, &c.;

When George in Pudding time came o'er,
And Moderate Men looked big, Sir,
My Principles I changed once more,
And so became a Whig, Sir.
And thus Preferment I procured,
From our Faith's great Defender,
And almost every day abjur'd
The Pope, and the Pretender.

  And this is Law, &c.;

The Illustrious House of Hanover,
And Protestant succession,
To these I lustily will swear,
Whilst they can keep possession:
For in my Faith, and Loyalty,
I never once will falter,
But George, my lawful king shall be,
Except the Times should alter.

  *And this is Law, &c;.

For Pennsylvania is the Land
Where Men with Hearts may Understand,
And much the nicest part must be
The County of Montgomery.
And in that district I most like
The town that ends the Pottstown Pike.
For heaven's blessings rarely stick
to folk who live in Limerick,
and you would be the worse to know
the crimes that they commit in Stowe,
and heaven's wrath comes raining down
on men who live in Boyertown,
where sins are strange, and stranger still
are secrets hid in Douglasville;
they'd slit your throat for twenty pence
in frightful Lower Providence
and rumour tells me true that no men
are virtuous in Perkiomen.
But Pottstown, oh, but dear Pottstown!
Why, there a person may lie down
upon its riverbanks so stony,
or paddle in the Manatawny.
They laugh and love their life so well
They're purchasing a carousel.
(And when they get to feeling old,
A thousand senior Cokes are sold
with super fries and apple pie:
McDonalds, Hanover and High.)

It was a foggy London night
Darkness that was in plain sight
But a night that one shouldn’t take light
Darken as the moon
A crime will be soon
Suddenly a loud gunshot
Obviously it was a plot
****** in senseless blood of a victim like a tight knot
Inspector Holmes and Watson appeared on the scene
They were searching for clues and evidence that wasn’t clean
The bullet that was aimed directly for the murdered victim’s chest
However, on the victim’s shirt was an emblem in the shape of a crest
The murdered victim was a member of the sophisticated intellectual honor society from Oxford University
Yet still no alibi as to why and what reason for this ******
However, Holmes and Watson were looking carefully for anything that would be a lead and crack the case
Somewhere the murderer will meet face to face
Immediately, a clue was discovered
An Oxford University Ring was missing off the murdered victim’s hand but was worth millions
There were also fingerprints scattered all over from the murderer
It all goes back to Edgar Beasley who was an average student and the murdered victim was Justin Hanover
Apparently there was rivalry between Beasley and Hanover
Hanover had plenty of honors and the ladies
Beasley was an average student that ladies wouldn’t even give the look over
Mr. Beasley was just plain self-centered and mean
He will now go to jail
Once again, Holmes and Watson cracked the case without fail
Mystery n o longer having a trail
London’s night being clear in justice
A feeling in don’t live in fear
Holmes and Watson will always be near.

Last night down Hanover Street,
that snaking backbone
  in the north end of Boston,
   you saw paper flowers,
    bursts of blood-red hearts
     and ruffled yellow fists

     and in the windows
    of limitless pastry shops,
   multi-story cakes
  slathered with icing
for weddings,
for partners in waiting.

what england needs now is no **** & dump king, it needs a lethal combination of edward the confessor, philip augustus (the 2nd, house of capet), and george iii (house of hanover); the first for the bluntness of truth, blunt knife of honesty is not honesty per se, per se a weakness isn't a weakness at all, esp. if it's colliding in polite society that understands it as rudeness; philip augustus for the genius of plotting: playing off richard i with henry ii, and richard with king john... george the iii? the one that went into the cuckoo's nest? i need him for the halo and the innocence of others, provided the innocence of others is simply a way with lies.*

which had me thinking,
the bit where i mingled linguistics with chemistry,
the asymmetry of c & k,
of s & z... cat, kettle, empiricism,
i don't know know of another s & z example
that does't involve the ß, sure the s is sharpened
into a z... perfect contortion for 90°...
fair enough... acute angles...
but i mean this quasi chiral sentencing...
c is non-super-imposable on k,
s isn't quite a z in alice's adventure
the other side of the mirror...
but in some instances (due to the lack
of diacritical marks in the english language
to bespeak australian and american and south african
and canadian accents as proof of moth / ćma)
it appears as if i mistook my spelling
even though the english language is the easiest dyslexic,
even i make spelling mistakes in the odd bit of phrasing,
but that's natural, there are no clear phonetic quanta
to base my judgement on...
clearly i can mistake on letter for another...
it's the clear over-individuation of worded distinction
that gets me bothered, finding semblance
in current celebrity culture of the:
gone with the wind / farted into the wind /
****** against the wind looking a locomotive
of dry cleaning, as was don quixote at the dry-cleaners
lance and delusions in hand...
i can arithmetic the word onomatopoeia
from the sound: on oh mah toe *** ah...
but where the hell is the vowel i?
can't find it... found a baboon quicker
shoving it's crimson **** cheeks into a birthday cake
quicker - laughing at whatever i.m. weasel said
when cartoon network was fun and intelligent
and had a chessboard logo and m.t.v. was
all about music videos and not about
16 year old teen mums... is that music to my ears?
indeed it is i.r. baboon ****.
a anyway... it's chiral in the mouth that c and k
it's super super impress tactic of two left hands
acting like one right hand...
but on paper even C or K could say that
one stroke-curving was like 3 segments:
down, north-east across to centre co-ordinates (0,0)
and south-east across to the same centre;
it's symmetrical in the mouth, but
asymmetrical in the eyes -
hurts a lot, like watching english (historically
speaking / moving on / a quality lost with time,
non-possessiveness of a quality,
came the pakistani post-colonial migrants
and gave a shoo to shoe-shine as under the carpet
and all was well in multi-culture of a sociological
experiment) governed by so so many
worded accents as to produce one a and not
one moldovan j (ж)... it's almost japanese
given the news!
so if quanta are incremental units of energy
in the french lingo 1cm,
then higgs are incremental units of mass,
in french lingo 1 of something...
it's still coconuts and palm trees with polar bears wandering
free in poland, given the english perspective
of the colonial past, with polish girls migrating to
the islands of discontent by storm eve;
those prone to eloquent scheming are in confession clumsy;
and those mad are capable of the highest intelligence...
but those with strap-on-****** will hardly manage
a zoo, let alone a human decimal of involvement;
fractions sounds better though,
we need surd markings on some of our phonetic symbols,
akin to diacritic marks... but whereas diacritic
marks stress... surd marks make pronunciation dissolve...
hence the need for censorship in theology akin...
we might require a pseudo hebrew take on things...
hiding the vowels will only elevate all other languages
to the extreme of hebrew, but it will not be enough;
we'll need for an ace of spades over a bible passage:
then revelation and poker faced tango.

I watched the best minds of my generation sit and watch jersey shore
         on a Monday night high on cough syrup
         Contemplating hyphy at dawn
         In fear of the day they would break
         With tall teas and idiosyncrasies of language
         So profound as to make all but the most imbued  
         confounded
Who were busted ***** deep in under aged **** Bleeding
         on the locker room floors in the shade
         and hallways of eager decadence
         and busted again three years later
         in ancient palaces at Hanover
Who rolled on the floor in ecstasy giggling at the shapes
         Floating listlessly in a dream down the ski slopes of Rutland
         With out feeling in the face or hands, they laid down in the white
         Light of daybreak on the rooftops of yesterday
Who made YouTube videos getting ****** up the ***
         By black ***** and loving it with a wide grin
         Shamelessly braying and bucking in the languor
         and persistent fickle protest for want of identity
Who punched each other in the face with boxing gloves
         Because they never knew pain or love
         Drinking the backwashed dregs of glasses
         And smoking cigarette butts on midnight
         Soccer fields
Who saw the perspectives reverse and shorten only to lengthen again
         And then tried to explain their visions of foxes
         To angle-haired exuberant Norwegian pranksters
Who wondered what the meaning was while drunk on plastic *****
         Sitting on carpet with the lights out in the smell of socks
Who smashed stolen mugs against sheet rock walls leaving marks
         And left their lives for the machine shops of west Texas
         Only to return to Alabama in a drunken blur for more
Who jacked off during French classes on the hill and sold drugs
         To snitches for outrageous prices
Who begged for mercy from men and women less than them
        From fear of the dreaded blacked pock marked record
Who stole whole rows of over the counter drugs for a cheap high
         On Saturdays during winter months of seasonal depression
Who lived and loved more than they even knew before child days
         Ended and adult games began
         Only ever wanting truth and purity
         and sincerity
in sublime ether lights never quite understood

To her who knows who she is.

I realize If you Donetsk in this world you don’t get,
so I thought about it Turin those nights away.
My mind would Rome.
As in to walk Cologne down Rhodes
my feet haven't wandered Faro while.

It seems you have the Kiev my heart,
Zagreb a Piza it in the Palma your hand,
Nevada let go but to keep for all time.

I’d been longing for York kiss,
Hungary to have you Lyon next to me;
thinking how Nice it would be
for you to Guinea your arms,
And wrap them around my Jersey.

Reno that in the Split of distance,
we are hanging on to;
‘We Chelsea how it goes.’
I Bern a little Kos knowing
Havana wait for those crucial words means
I don’t get to Hanover a love
you’d never get Bordeaux having.  

When Ireland and you Symi
you’ll see that I don’t Minsk my words.
You’ll sea I was never in the-Nile,
so Danube worry about that.
I want to Brighton your days
and Tokyo somewhere we could be
kings and Queens.

I hopes that where this Texas;
we’d be eventually
Edinburgh place to call home.

Gdansk and Lodz of love….


You know who

Little bees. little bees. seeb elittil. be lees. it esbe li tle.
Just math. Simple mathematics.
Simple masonry.
The ghosts **** the little bees.
Hanover. It's a city.
Massachusetts. Germany. New Hampshire.
It's just another one of those things.

you never know what
                the next day will bring,
but, like today,
   i became disappointed
   and the amount
       of letters i received
   by mail...
in the past 10 years,
   i received only bank
statements,
     alumni magazines from
edinburgh and u.c.l.,
          oh, and those two
letters (+ a book) from a
girl from warsaw...
but today?
      i look at the counter
and see this letter for me...
      but that's the odd thing,
i've never had contact
   with harrington & byrne:
hanover sq., mayfair
                            (W1S 1BN)...
the **** do they want
i thought while opening
the envelope...
       ah... i knew it, *******...
    buying the 1840
penny black postage stamp
with queen victoria aged 15,
for a "mere"
one hundred and twenty
quid...
   but that's good...
         they also sell gold & silver
coins...
     i'll phone them up
  or write to them, and ask them
   about my collection
      of foreign currency -
you never know,
     those polish banknotes
   from the inflation period
prior to the collapse of the soviet
union might be worth
  something akin
  to the excess of zeroes written
on them;
****, you think i'd be making
this up googling the brand?
         like i said...
  **** me... my email account is
even better...
                  i have
          about a total of 20 emails
in it...
        either i'm covert,
  or invisible,
     or "worse" still,
          a persona non grata;
        mmm...                          bliss!
saying that: it's nice to receive
the most random letters...
                 ACTUAL PAPER!
sooner or later, you'll get perverts
roaming the streets,
     with a sheet of paper
in their hand... rubbing it between
their fingers...
    as you'll get those perverts
sniffing ink-cartridge, once loaded
    into fountain-pens -
   can you remember the days
of chalk & blackboards?

it's raining, i outstretch my hand in an akimbo pose on a windowsill, capture some rain on the hand, and then, lick it off.

i always seem to word the world in better guise,
when i can encourage a minute or two,
faking being blind,
closed eyes, deaf or rather
  deafened by headphones,
       cackling, trying to make a hyrbid
of fox and hyena in me attempting
a shy laugh...
          i forget when my admiration
for ****** hair began...
probably after i neared November,
and own, started to agitate the wind,
i.e.it started to be brushed by it,
like a long-haired tangle....
          the oddity of experiencing
your ****** hair made real by the wind...
there are
the falcon sheds his wings
to dive for his prey...
                   as any angel might
to caste a magic of embodiment...
the falcon imitates
an arrow, slicing, thriving,
cutting through, reestablishing a
genesis... a let's begrudge an unnecessary
             beginning...
prior to wishing being a father,
prior to asking for a son,
prior to attaining a woman,
i am conscript of metaphor,
              i abhor the literalism
of an egyptian prince, comedy of
the overtly literal *******...
            what i hate deserves hating...
mort poetica is, not, an, answer!
             there was no talking serpent
to begin with,
  there was only your labouring poetry...
ever heard  of *nuance of joke?
   if making life difficult was your answer,
you pillock, numb-whit,
   fine! fine fine!
                        plonkers r us...
tragic!
                   our safe-haven of
class A hillbilly window-cleaners!
     Delboy is my new Goebbel Hoffhessen
trap of a treat...
you quasi cockney squat!
laugh all you want,
i wanna the bending of the 'nee -
                   surds g, anmd the k,
and then the pucker asks:
                w'ah wit dame cockney
                               n' the lost feather....
you playing me potters'?
                             'ucking bride to be
wishy-washy lost oasis mods...
         jerkers off in the trans fannies...
farking bunnies...
calls them the southern bunnies,
quips us better sorter than
the gimmick muzzies of herr mah mah med;
******* dollop of a plonker.
you get bistro nostalgic on me
i'll get holiday happy to be honest,
over hanover,
i know a german loving a gormnan
when i see 'un.
                  last time i told this tale
i was tying a string to a paper tail,
an aeroplane in the the form of
origami...
                    i'll **** one off,
if you ask me nicely, you
******* ire, shh shh,
gingerbread man's worth of a
******* celt pleading for both
ginger & luck...
flip a coin...
  call it a shamrock;
then demand less than the lesser
of all possibles lessened:
the perfectly poured pint
of Guinness... ye' *******
scab of waiting intervention...
   you f'acking kanyan scabbed
sun-stroked-mastering-
of a paint-brush...
       in aiming for a crumb
dedicated to a loaf.
         it's almost funny watching
commentators of today
being so dismissive of poetry
in biblical writing,
   their literal interpretation
of biblical verse is
beyond funny...
                 it's just plain sad,
before they make fun of
the language of an ancient egyptian
prince, i suggest they read
some words of
  ambiguity / poetry...
             who is not to write
imagery, in order to not gauge out
the eyes of readers?!

language as a museum, some nudes,
nudes are welcome, but also the
dyslexic takes on "profanity" -
namely:
like f%$£ you can -
you f------
albino take on a n-----!
ooh...
         takes two to take
a lesson in art...
nackte ist güt...
  korrekt s(c)hreiben, arg! das ist arg!
**** güt, oo -
roll on, roll off...
           hovering over A
                                         eine gnat -
and how often is the
umlaut missing,
when it's required to
make syllable cuts, curbs,
and counting?
      i'm starting to imagine
the lost art of counting as the essence
of arithmetic -
            e.g. das ist goo, nein gút -
oot, utterly - ah -
         goo, ja?
                       jawohl?
   reiteration in expansion...
das ist nein gút: g~at -
but the roll-over count of
   braille 2x, ja?
                  where j = y...
               Hanover blues -
güt...
       goo't -
                 T tap crisp -
                          scheißefraude -
when did language resemble
a coordination?
        whenever the never
of the "artist" ever perfecting
the realm of numbers?!
          so, who's this fresh
******* reading of the
dictatorial press of what's:
"art"?
         next time he comes along
these ways knocking...
   tell him to invent,
                    a ******* doorbell.
me? deaf as a doorknob.

Winston Churchill (novelist)
(Nov. 10, 1871 – Mar. 12, 1947)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the literary career of the British statesman of the same name, see Winston Churchill as writer.

Born November 10, 1871
St. Louis, Missouri, US
Died March 12, 1947 (aged 75)
Winter Park, Florida, US
Occupation Novelist, writer
Genre
Non-fiction
Short story
Historical fiction
Notable works
Mr. Crewe's Career
Mr. Keegan's Elopement
Coniston
The Crossing
A Far Country
A Traveller In War-Time
Spouse Mabel Harlakenden Hall
​
​(m. 1895; died 1945)​
Children 3
Winston Churchill (November 10, 1871 – March 12, 1947) was an American best-selling novelist of the early 20th century.

He is nowadays overshadowed, even as a writer, by the more famous British statesman of the same name, to whom he was not closely related.

Early life
Churchill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Edward Spalding Churchill by his marriage to Emma Bell Blaine. He attended Smith Academy in Missouri and the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1894. At the Naval Academy, he was conspicuous in scholarship and also in general student activities. He became an expert fencer and he organized at Annapolis the first eight-oared crew, which he captained for two years. After graduation he became an editor of the Army and Navy Journal. He resigned from the U.S. Navy to pursue a writing career. In 1895, he became managing editor of the Cosmopolitan Magazine, but in less than a year he retired from that, to have more time for writing.[1] While he would be most successful as a novelist, he was also a published poet and essayist.

Career
His first novel to appear in book form was The Celebrity (1898). However, Mr. Keegan's Elopement had been published in 1896 as a magazine serial and was republished as an illustrated hardback book in 1903. Churchill's next novel—Richard Carvel (1899) — was a phenomenal success. The novel was the third best-selling work of American fiction in 1899 and eighth-best in 1900, according to Alice Hackett's 70 Years of Best Sellers. It sold some two million copies in a nation of only 76 million people, and made Churchill rich. His other commercially successful novels included The Crisis (1901), The Crossing (1904), Coniston (1906), Mr. Crewe's Career (1908) and The Inside of the Cup (1913), all of which ranked first on the best-selling American novel list in the years indicated.[2]

Churchill's early novels were historical, but his later works were set in contemporary America. He often sought to include his political ideas into his novels.


Churchill at his home, Windsor, Vermont
In 1898, Churchill commissioned Charles Platt to design a mansion in Cornish, New Hampshire. Churchill moved there the following year and named it Harlakenden House. From 1913 to 1915, he leased it to Woodrow Wilson, who used it as his summer residence. Churchill became involved in the Cornish Art Colony and went into politics, winning election to the state legislature in 1903 and 1905.[3] In 1906, he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor of New Hampshire. In 1912, he was nominated as the Progressive candidate for governor but did not win the election and did not seek public office again. In 1917, he toured the battlefields of World War I and wrote his first non-fiction work about what he saw.

Sometime after the move to Cornish, he took up painting in watercolors and became known for his landscapes. Some of his works are in the collections of the Hood Museum of Art (part of Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College) in Hanover, New Hampshire, and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire.

In 1919, Churchill decided to stop writing and withdrew from public life. He was gradually forgotten by the public. In 1923, Harlakenden House burned down. The Churchills moved to an 1838 Federal estate, part of the Cornish Colony called Windfield House (now called Hillside) at 23 Freeman Road in Plainfield, furnishing it with items saved from the fire.[4] In 1940, The Uncharted Way, his first book in twenty years, was published. The book examined Churchill's thoughts on religion. He did not seek to publicize the book and it received little attention. Shortly before his death, he said, "It is very difficult now for me to think of myself as a writer of novels, as all that seems to belong to another life."

Death
Churchill died in Winter Park, Florida, in 1947 of a heart attack. He was predeceased in 1945 by his wife of fifty years, the former Mabel Harlakenden Hall.[5] He is featured on a New Hampshire historical marker (number 16) along New Hampshire Route 12A in Cornish.[6]

Churchill and his wife had three children. Their son John Dwight Winston Churchill was married to Mary Deshon Hand, daughter of Judge Learned Hand.[7] Another son Creighton Churchill was a well-known writer on wines.[8][9] Journalist Chris Churchill of Albany, New York is his great-grandson.[10]

The British statesman
In the 1890s, Churchill's writings first came to be confused with those of the British writer with the same name. At that time, the American was the much better known of the two, and it was the Englishman who wrote to his American counterpart about the confusion their names were causing among their readers.[11]

They agreed that the British Churchill should adopt the pen name "Winston Spencer Churchill", using his full surname, "Spencer-Churchill". After a few early editions this was abbreviated to "Winston S. Churchill"—which remained the British Churchill's pen name. The two men arranged to meet on two occasions when one of them happened to be in the other's country, but were never closely acquainted.[12]

Their lives had some other coincidental parallels. They both gained their tertiary education at service colleges and briefly served (during the same period) as officers in their respective countries' armed forces (one was a naval officer, the other an army officer). Both Churchills were keen amateur painters, as well as writers. Both were also politicians, although the British Churchill's political career was far more illustrious.[13]

Works
Novels
Mr. Keegan's Elopement in magazine format (1896)
The Celebrity (1898)
Richard Carvel (1899)
The Crisis (1901)
Mr. Keegan's Elopement in hardback (1903)
The Crossing (1904)
Coniston (1906)
Mr. Crewe's Career (1908)
A Modern Chronicle (1910)
The Inside of the Cup (1913)
A Far Country (1915)
The Dwelling-Place of Light (1917)
Other writings
Richard Carvel; Play produced on Broadway, (1900–1901)
The Crisis; Play produced on Broadway, (1902)
The Crossing; Play produced on Broadway, (1906)
The Title Mart; Play produced on Broadway, (1906)
A Traveller In War-Time (1918)
Dr. Jonathan; A play in three acts (1919)
The Uncharted Way (1940)