Chapter and Verse

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

More queries from the archive: 

A request for the text of a short story called “The Field of Purple Bloom,” originally read in serial form in a Midwestern farm journal.

And: “They are exiles when we invite them to dinner and refugees when we raise money for them.”

Also: “And by the way, whenever Cruelty is in town, they have him over for a sumptuous feast.”

 

“Stranger, go, tell the Spartans” (September-October 2010). Making use of the Index of American Periodical Verse, David Myatt has identified the poem “News from Thermopylae,” by Howard Lachtman, originally published in the 1972 winter issue of Poet Lore (67:4; 345).

 

“Lust is the lamp that lifts the gloom” (January-February). Both Dan Rosenberg and Wendie Howland suggested as the original of this misquoted couplet (first printed in the November-December 1995 issue) the lines “Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb./ Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom,” which begin section xxi of the title poem in William Ernest Henley’s collection Hawthorn and Lavender: Songs and Madrigals. 

 

“No longer able to listen to the music of Mozart” (January-February). Dan Rosenberg traced this query from the March-April 1996 issue back to a Saturday Review column (42:3; 1959) by Cleveland Amory ’39 that relates the story of an overzealous reporter querying Albert Einstein about the impact of nuclear war.

 

Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge 02138, or via e-mail to chapterandverse@harvardmag.com.

Click here for the March-April 2011 issue table of contents

You might also like

Off the Shelf

The wealth gap, shamanism, the life of David Nathan, and more

Reconstructing the Berlin Wall

David Leo Rice explores the strange, unseen forces shaping our world.

An Original Magna Carta, Hidden in Plain Sight

A rare original surfaces at Harvard at an “almost providential” moment. 

Most popular

Harvard Layoffs Continue, with More to Come

In the wake of federal government actions, several Harvard schools and institutes are cutting costs.

Trump Administration Threatens Harvard’s Accreditation, Subpoenas Student Records

The federal government mounts pressure amid negotiations with Harvard.

Are Noncitizens’ Speech Rights Protected?

Harvard faculty testify in a federal lawsuit over free speech and deportations.

Explore More From Current Issue

Filmmaker John Armstrong’s Adventure Documentaries

Filmmaker John Armstrong’s “outdoor adventures” find the human spirit.

How Harvard Students Handle Political Disagreements

The Undergraduate asks if intellectualism is really on life support.

The Woman Who Rode Horses Into the Water

Scrapbooking a woman who rode horses into the sea