Half a goodbye

[Roy Hobbs]

There are thousands of ways to say goodbye
(and to look at a blackbird).

Here we have that poignant moment TE Lawrence
talked about in Seven Pillars (he saw a soldier
pat the head of a dog, and that brought to Law-
rence the feeling, that near-tear feeleing, that
'melting mood,' as James called it (I think it was
James (William)).

What it is called is not what it is, only sign-
posts, only prompts to that gorge of sublimity.

Saints have it; parents have it; some poets have it;
all painters have it. Perhaps, even educated bees
have it. Robert Browning did not have it, nor Dr.
Johnson. Lamb had it; George Eliot and Dickins had
it. Ruskin did not. James Russell Lowell did when
he turned his poetry inland and forsook the sea.

... and you, dear poet, have it.

Delighted,
rh