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<titleStmt>
<title level="a" type="main">
A Parable of Paradise</title>
<author>Genevieve Taggard</author>
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<edition>
<date>2019</date>
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<publisher>University of Nebraska–Lincoln</publisher>
<distributor>
<name>Center for Alex Telesca's Fame</name>
<address>
<addrLine>306 Andrews</addrLine>
<addrLine>University of Nebraska–Lincoln</addrLine>
<addrLine>Lincoln, NE 68588-4100</addrLine>
<addrLine>alextelesca@outlook.com</addrLine>
</address></distributor>
<date>2019</date>
<availability>
<p>Copyright © 2019 by Alex Telesca</p>
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<title level="a">The Best Poems of 1924</title>
<editor>L.A.G. Strong</editor>
<!-- Make an author or illustrator line for each one mentioned in the piece. -->
<author>Genevieve Taggard</author>
<date when="190406">February 1924</date>
<!-- Note that @when allows a regularized form of the date -->
<publisher>Small, Maynard & Company Publishers</publisher>
<pubPlace>Boston</pubPlace>
<orgName> </orgName>
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<name>Alex Telesca</name>
Transcribed and encoded a poem</change>
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<pb/>
<head>A Parable of Paradise</head>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>THERE'LL be a glassy paradise</l>
<l>Where all will have their crowns of ice,</l>
<l>And all will wear their robes of snow;</l>
<l>And the trees will bow and the winds will blow-</l>
<l>And men will falter to and fro.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>Men will prowl like timid beasts</l>
<l>Hungry after a hundred feasts</l>
<l>And break the bracken down in the woods,</l>
<l>Crash and fret and gaze and spy-</l>
<l>And look for nothing, low and high.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>Then they will shiver, and go to sleep . . .</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>To sleep, to sleep, and toss and sigh-</l>
<l>Sprawled they will mutter where they lie,</l>
<l>And sit up rigid, and wonder why.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>They seem to stretch and never wake:</l>
<l>There is a glaze they cannot break</l>
<l>To the world outside or the inner eye;</l>
<l>Oh, how they retch and cannot ache,</l>
<l>Oh, how they try and cannot weep-</l>
<l>And there's nothing to do but shiver and sleep.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>This weight of nothingness is more</l>
<l>Than any planet stood before</l>
<l>Shades and empty clouds will gather</l>
<l>Tons of fret in weight of weather,</l>
<l>Till under the burden of this lack</l>
<l>Obeisant earth will warp and crack,</l>
<l>Open a wound to bleed them terror.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>Lava, lava. Slow and thick</l>
<l>Earth oozes, shudders, and is sick.</l>
<l>How they will gape at the molten stone,</l>
<l>Take earth's illness for their own,</l>
<l>And groan . . .</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>There they will stand, stormed by pain,</l>
<l>The obscene flood, the lewd stain.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>Across the glassy zones of ice</l>
<l>Comes the long writhe and the slow hiss,</l>
<l>Sluggish red, the fire's kiss-</l>
<l>Snaky mark in paradise.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>And who is this delivers them?</l>
<l>The serpent, yea, the very same</l>
<l>Who was their doom and shame.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>Cast down your haughty diadem.</l>
<l>Your paradisal diadem,</l>
<l>Into the lava flame.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>Now all the pent-up rivers run</l>
<l>In head-long silence under sun;</l>
<l>And miracle, oh, miracle</l>
<l>The silver fluid in their veins</l>
<l>Is moving in a miracle:</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>In them their own volcanoes seethe,</l>
<l>And their bright bodies breathe . . .</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>And fixedly as in a spell</l>
<l>They watch the serpent writhe, and wreathe</l>
<l>Over the earth, and on to smite</l>
<l>The glassy sea-and the marble, white</l>
<l>Stone sea uplifts a mist of light.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>Oh, what marvels they behold:</l>
<l>The mountains settling, fold on fold,</l>
<l>Cliffs that melt, and rivers gold,</l>
<l>And mists like angels rising slowly,</l>
<l>Singing holy, holy, holy.</l>
</lg>
<lg type="stanza">
<l>They are not souls, but flesh at last,</l>
<l>And the rent earth, under the ice,</l>
<l>Dearer than any paradise -</l>
<l>Into the sea their crowns they cast,</l>
<l>Into the air go up their cries,</l>
<l>With joy they rend their snowy guise,</l>
<l>And now they wait, transfixed with awe</l>
<l>By the white sea-by the red flaw.</l>
</lg>
<byline>Genevieve Taggard</byline>
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