For that was ripe, and fell full fast.
Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high:
One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.
Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly:
He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!
Blacker was he than blackest jet,
Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet.
He picked up the acorn and buried it straight
By the side of a river both deep and great.
Where then did the Raven go?
He went high and low,
Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.
Many Autumns, many Springs
Travelled he with wandering wings:
Many summers, many Winters-
I can't tell half his adventures.
At length he came back, and with him a She
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree.
They built them a nest in the topmost bough,
And young ones they had, and were happy enow.
But soon came a Woodman in leathern guise,
His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes.
He'd an axe in his hanth not a word he spoke,
But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke,
At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak.
His young ones were killed; for they could not depart,
And their mother did die of a broken heart.
The boughs from the trunk the Woodman did sever;
And they floated it down on the course of the river.
They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip,
And with this tree and others they made a good ship.
The ship, it was launched; but in sight of the land
Such a storm there did rise as no ship would withstand.
It bulged on a rock, and the waves rush'd in fast;
Round and round flew the Raven, and cawed to the blast.
He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls-
See! see! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls!
Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet,
And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet,
And he thank'd him again and again for this treat:
They had taken his all, and REVENGE IT WAS SWEET!
Mr. Hackworth:
I hope the above poem illuminates the ideas I only touched on during our meeting of Tuesday last, and that it may contribute to your paroemiological studies.
Coleridge wrote it in reaction to the tone of contemporary children's literature, which was didactic, much like the stuff they feed to our children in the "best" schools. As you can see, his concept of a children's poem is refreshingly nihilistic.
Perhaps this sort of material might help to inculcate the sought-after qualities.
I look forward to further conversations on the subject. Finkle-McGraw
This was only the starting-point of development that had lasted for two years and culminated today. Christmas was just over a month away. Four-year-old Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw would receive the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from her grandfather.
Fiona Hackworth would be getting a copy of the Illustrated Primer too, for this had been John Percival Hackworth's crime: He had programmed the matter compiler to place the cockleburs on the outside of Elizabeth's book. He had paid Dr. X to extract a terabyte of data from one of the cockleburs. That data was, in fact, an encrypted copy of the matter compiler program that had generated the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. He had paid Dr. X for the use of one of his matter compilers, which was connected to private Sources owned by Dr. X and not connected to any Feed. He had generated a second, secret copy of the Primer.
The cockleburs had already self-destructed, leaving no evidence of his crime. Dr. X probably had a copy of the program on his computers, but it was encrypted, and Dr. X was smart enough simply to erase the thing and free up the storage, knowing that the encryption schemes apt to be used by someone like Hackworth could not be cracked without divine intervention.
Before long the streets widened, and the hush of tires on pavement blended with the buller of waves against the gradual shores of Pudong. Across the bay, the white lights of the New Atlantis Clave rose up above the particolored mosaic of the Leased Territories. It seemed a long way off, so on impulse Hackworth rented a velocipede from an old man who had set up a stall in the lee of the Causeway's thrust bearing. He rode out onto the Causeway and, invigorated by the cool moist air on his face and hands, decided to pedal for a while. When he reached the arch, he allowed the bike's internal batteries to carry him up the slope. At the summit he turned it off and began to coast down the other side, enjoying the speed.
His top hat flew off. It was a good one, with a smart band that was supposed to make these mishaps a thing of the past, but as an engineer, Hackworth had never taken the manufacturer's promise seriously. Hackworth was going too fast to make a safe U-turn, and so he put on the brakes. When he finally got himself turned around, he was unable to see his hat. He did see another cyclist coming toward him. It was a young man, covered in a slick Nanobar outfit. Except for his head, which was smartly adorned with Hackworth's top hat.
Hackworth was prepared to ignore this jape; it was probably the only way the boy could safely get the hat down the hill, as prudence dictated keeping both hands on the handlebars. But the boy did not seem to be applying his brakes, and as he accelerated toward Hackworth, he actually sat up, taking both hands off the handlebars, and gripped the brim of the hat with both hands. Hackworth thought the boy was preparing to throw it back as he went by, but instead he pulled it down onto his head and grinned insolently as he shot past.
"Say! Stop right there! You have my hat!" Hackworth shouted, but the boy did not stop. Hackworth stood astride his bicycle and watched unbelievingly as the boy began to fade into the distance. Then he turned on the bicycle's power assist and began chasing him.
His natural impulse had been to summon the police. But since they were on the Causeway, this would mean the Shanghai Police again. In any case, they could not possibly have responded fast enough to catch this boy, who was well on his way to the end of the Causeway, where he could fork off into any of the Leased Territories.
Hackworth nearly caught him. Without the power assist it would have been no contest, as Hackworth exercised daily in his club while this boy had the pudgy, pasty look typical of thetes. But the boy had a considerable head start. By the time they reached the first ramp leading down into the Leased Territories, Hackworth was only ten or twenty meters away, just close enough that he could not resist following the boy down the ramp. An overhead sign read: ENCHANTMENT.
They both picked up more speed on the ramp, and once again the boy reached up to grip the brim of the top hat. This time the bike's front wheel turned the wrong way. The boy erupted from the seat. The bicycle skittered into the irrelevant distance and clattered into something. The boy bounced once, rolled, and skidded for a couple of meters. The hat, its crown partially collapsed, rolled on its brim, toppled, and wobbled to a stop. Hackworth hit the brakes hard and overshot the boy for some distance. As before, it took him longer than he would have liked to get turned around.