Wednesday, May 27, 2009

But soft, what (clothesline) through yonder window breaks?

Scene II Capulet's orchard.
[Enter ROMEO]
ROMEO
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
[JULIET appears above at a window]
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses;
I will answer it.
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night. &c........
Birds have been landing on the finally discarded clothesline for years, landing and swaying to maintain balance on the arcing line. Finchs, wrens, they'd been tugging at the softer outer fabric, gathering beaks full of fluff, presumably for nest-building. Or, mayhap, for mischief?

The clothesline waned ever more threadbare, yet still supporting full loads of heavy, wet clothes, year by year, regularly aggrieved by pinching clothespins, week by week, and weaker by weaker. When wilst yon bird-beaked clothesline break? Fastidians would have replaced the 'unsightly' length of ragged rope much sooner.

It finally happened.

With a full load of sheets flapping as sails in the wind, the veteran clothesline gave up its evermore tenuous grip; a dull snap, or as a loosely-strung lute string, it was broken at last.

Yesterday the surrender to fate brought all down. Oh Woe! Consigned to the trash container is it; but stay! What of the mortal coil?

Immortalized by this organ, it will live in memory on the ether of the interenet, forevermore.





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