Chapter & Verse

John Mitchell requests the source and the rest (if any) of a ditty that begins...

John Mitchell requests the source and the rest (if any) of a ditty that begins "'Twas midnight on the ocean,/Not a streetcar was in sight./I went down to the corner store/To buy myself a light./ The man behind the counter/Was a woman old and gray/Who used to sell bananas/On the road to Mandalay."

Andrew Webster seeks the author's name and the rest of a poem that begins "No matter what happens to man/ The world is well made, though."

A. Shneur Horowitz wonders who described children as "that outlaw band."

Timothy Fleck hopes someone can provide the correct wording and a source for the assertion, "There are only three true arts: [?], [?], and pastry decoration. Architecture is a branch of pastry decoration."

June Skye Szirotny asks if anyone can provide an authoritative source for Richard Ellmann's assertion, in his 1973 essay "Dorothea's Husbands," that Beatrice Potter Webb referred to Herbert Spencer as Casaubon, the elderly scholar in George Eliot's Middlemarch.

"Truro" (January-February). Frank Kelly Jr. was first to identify "Memory of Cape Cod," from The Harp Weaver and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The poem was read at the funeral mass of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

"hell-fire sunset" (January-February). Cathe Giffuni identified "Wild Wales," in Sylvia Townsend Warner's Scenes of Childhood and Other Stories, as the source.

Most popular

A new proposed structure, layoffs, and a five-day-a-week in-person work mandate will take effect by fall.

An animal’s journey from grief to love shows how much humans need each other, too.

Harvard Weathers a Year of Turmoil

The federal government has launched unprecedented actions against the University. Here’s a guide.

Explore More From Current Issue

An open book with a film strip emerging, trailing popcorn and a dancer silhouette.

Readers Respond to Our Adaptations Survey

We asked people to share their favorite art adaptations. Here’s what they said.

Two figures stand before a large, colorful pixelated face against a yellow background.

Harvard scientists identify hundreds of genes under selective pressure.

Star-filled night sky with the Milky Way arching over a rocky silhouette.

There’s a growing movement to curb light pollution. It starts on your front porch.