I do my best on the pot and think of my sex and think I’ll be rotting soon, and I hear pegs moving in the beams, and I hear old time and new time—outside the church bells strike. Outside of what?
Henley Street
Stratford
February 8, 1616
Why do I write?
All day Ann has sat by the windows, embroidering, soaking sun, her rheumatic fingers paining her, her silence and disdain evident.
Her stooped shoulders anger me because they remind me of my age, and I rant at time’s disdain and irreparable devastations: a plague on time’s house, a plague on mine—sickly wife and sickly husband.
Egypt—it is well you aren’t here, to be contorted, cheated, frailed or paunched. To nourish an illusion is hard and grows harder through the years. The only wisdom is the quiet heart, born of the smile of heaven, seeking nature, not the wild sea of conscience.
But that is for the wise! Today, there is no Orpheus. The trees are not our sanctuary. The seas don’t hang their heads; I hang mine. Where’s the lute, the player? I travel round and round the dial, to Ellen and the cloak, the fog and loneliest of men. Time should cure all, they say. But time—as I see time—does not oblige.