I give you this little piece of silliness for a warm Thursday:
The sun shines down from meridian height
And illumines the depths of the sea.
Cry out the fishes, beginning to sweat,
"Oh, dammit! How hot we shall be!"
I learned this ditty from Mom, who told me it was penned by none other than Mr. John Keats himself. I have never been able to confirm this independently. However, as the Mothe holds an MA in English Litershure and is the person from whom I inhereted my own readerly geekiness, I consider her to be a pretty reliable source.
Posted by Robert at June 15, 2006 09:11 AM | TrackBackYour Internet search skills are slipping.
It was from a letter to Jane Reynolds, Sept. 14, 1817. I found it in the Google Books project and I would have provided a link, but apparently 'Google dot com' is blacklisted so I can't have that in a comment. Go to the Google books project, search for The complete works of Keats, choose the second result on the list (viewing the first is restricted due to copyright issues) and then "search within this book" for meridian height.
But I can't tell from that if they are his own words, or if he's quoting someone else.
Posted by: MRN aka "The Husband" at June 15, 2006 07:49 PM