{"id":1113,"date":"2013-04-12T10:49:01","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T14:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnestes.org\/?p=1113"},"modified":"2013-04-12T10:49:01","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T14:49:01","slug":"from-dust-riches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/?p=1113","title":{"rendered":"From Dust, Riches"},"content":{"rendered":"

As one who enters contests with some regularity, I am always curious to understand what makes for a $1000 poem, or even a $10,000 poem. Well, here’s an answer to the question of what makes a $141,000 poem. A work of verse written by a teenage Charlotte Bronte, “I’ve Been Wandering in the Greenwoods,” fetched that much at auction recently. The thing is written in pencil on a 3-inch square piece of paper, so it’s really a miniature replica of a poem. The story would have been better, of course, had it been discovered in a dusty attic, between the pages of a dusty old book.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The tiny and expensive extant ms. of Charlotte Bronte’s “I’ve Been Wandering in the Greenwoods”<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s the poem:<\/p>\n

I’ve been wandering in the greenwoods<\/strong>
\nby Charlotte Bront\u00eb<\/p>\n

I’ve been wandering in the greenwoods
\nAnd mid flowery smiling plains
\nI’ve been listening to the dark floods
\nTo the thrushes thrilling strains<\/p>\n

I have gathered the pale primrose
\nAnd the purple violet sweet
\nI’ve been where the Asphodel grows
\nAnd where lives the red deer fleet.<\/p>\n

I’ve been to the distant mountain,
\nTo the silver singing rill
\nBy the crystal murmering fountain,
\nAnd the shady verdant hill.<\/p>\n

I’ve been where the poplar is springing
\nFrom the fair Inamelled ground
\nWhere the nightingale is singing
\nWith a solemn plaintive sound.<\/p>\n

Speaking of miniature replicas, this just in from Japan: you can now get 1\/12 scale miniature bathroom fixtures for your action figures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"scale-model-toilet3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking of that, and of making much out of the necessary, the ancient Egyptians venerated the scarab beetle because they saw their young as-if-by-magic emerge from neatly rolled balls dung. Anything that does that must be holy. Here’s another installment of Ze Frank’s True Facts series.<\/p>\n

\n