For the W/S 2001 issue,
Tom Dunn chose to put a poem on the cover.
I love this poem.
It must be quoted here.
THE WEED THAT CHEERS
By J. Henry Hager
:
NICOTIA, dear to the muse
Than all the grapes' bewildering juice,
We worship, unforbid of thee;
And, as her incense floats and curls
In airy spires and wayward whirls,
Or poises on its tremulous stalk
A flower of frailest revery,
So winds and loiters, idly free,
The current of unguided talk,
Now laughter-rippled, and now caught
In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought,
Meanwhile thou mellowest every word,
A sweetly unobtrusive third;
For thou hast magic beyond wine
To unlock natures each to each;
The unspoken thought thou canst divine;
Thou fillest the pauses of the speech
With whispers that to dream-land reach,
And frozen fancy-springs unchain
In Artic outskirts of the brain;
Sun of all inmost confidences!
To thy rays doth the hear unclose
Its formal calyx of pretences,
That close against rude day's offences,
And open its shy midnight rose.
Note: Both the above poem and the print to its left come from
LOTOS LEAVES (Original stories, essays, and poems, by various authors), edited by William Fearing Gill (R. Worthington, New York, 1882).
Editorial appears on page 111.
Pg. one one one:
FROM YOUR EDITOR - Best wishes for 2001! We are pleased to bring you yet another "fat" issue of the
Ephemeris, with much interesting material and plenty of graphics.
ABOUT OUR COVER: The delightful masthead is the work of
Stavros Gavris, whose fine artwork you have seen previously in TPSE.
etc.
I cut here and go to pg. one one three inwhich the PREFACE exists folio right verso:
(See Page 111 for a note on the Preface below.)
PREFACE.
TO THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR ROYAL MULTIPLICITY: -
We,
the subscribers hereto, appreciating the absorbing interest taken at the present period in the occult and nonunderstandable, beg to call the attention of pansophic inquirers to the singular MANIFESTATIONS which will develop themselves in the pages following, emanating, as they do, from a group of edacious and bibitory media, who materialize daily at the refectory of the Lotos Club.
YOUR AUGUST POTENTIALITY will not fail to observe that those spiritual adumbrations are not evanescent or fugaceous, a latrocinous cheat, repugnant to common-sense and an insult to the most parvanimous of human intelligences, but tangible entities, altogether stationary, and as visible to every eye as the readablest of printed work.
The embodied essences which will in due time appear, - psychologic offspring evoluted from the mysterious union of the brain and pen, - being polygenous, will of necessity be variform and dissimilar; but, however unlike in shape or feature they may be when compared with each other, yet individually they will be found to exhibit sufficient family resemblance to indicate their paternity.
In
Books, as in
Babies, one can readily discover - excepting in the cases of unequal collaboration, or of entirely pilfered matter, foreign or domestic - some characteristic trait hereditary, some trick of style or peculiarity of expression, through which to designate the author of their being.
The cerebral progeny of the Lotos will, in like manner, display upon their lineaments the shadowy sign-manual of their respective producers.
With this brief but perspicuous prolegomenon, we send our multigenerous youngsters out into the world, to be judged by their merits; parental solicitude alone urging us to entreat for them a liberal indulgence, if it be only for their juvenility.
It only remains to say that the pecuniary profits, if any, resulting from the promulgation of these Leaves will be presented to the American Dramatic Fund.
J.B. & J.E.
:!:
In essence,
it is that which stuff my drames be made,
madder,
perhaps,
but witha grin anda spirit anda soul that goes on & on & on
ever so forth
thru the forest
of so many leaves
left scattered amongst
our digitized lives,
and which,
when read,
or said,
all out in the open,
or even alone,
brings the being of being into being,
and I know
that
I am not alone,
and,
right now,
you are reading this,
hello.