Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish main,
“I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

“Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And tonight no moon we see!”
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

To a child, any prohibition is simply an open challenge. To Rosely, the co-existence of a book and myself was an irresistible temptation. Any sort of book, even poetry of which the only one I can remember from the time was Longfellow’s The Wreck of the Hesperus.

“O Father! I hear the sound of guns,
Oh say, what may it be?”
“Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea”

“O Father! I see a gleaming light,
Oh say, what may it be?”
But the father answered never a word,
For a frozen corpse was he.

 “Now Rosalie, you’ve been told not to read to him.”
 “It ain’t reading. It’s poetry. I’m reciting.”
 “Sounds the same to me….”
 “Completely different. They said so at school.”
Which appeal to a higher authority tossed my parents every time.
 “Well, don’t read too much, then. You know it isn’t good for him.”

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe.