This is a poem by Emily Dickinson. I learned about its existence for the first time today, listening to Julia Hulsmann’s Trio with Roger Cicero (Good Morning Midnight), a disc that should be included in the top albums of 2008, if that list had not to close some time… The whole disk sets to music poems by Emily Dickinson.
When Plato was [not a memory of the past, but] a certainty [of the present]
A PRECIOUS, mouldering pleasure ’t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,
His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.
His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;
What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty,
And Sophocles a man;
When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,
He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true:
He lived where dreams were born.
His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.
