He clasps the crag with hooked hands;Close to the sun in lonely lands,Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Pederson knew night was falling over Syrtis Major; blind, still he knew the Martian night had arrived; the harp crickets had come out. The halo of sun’s warmth that had kept him golden through the long day had dissipated, and he could feel the chill of the darkness now. Despite his blindness, there was appreciable changing in the shadows that lived where once, long ago, there had been sight.
“Pretrie,” he called into the hush, and the answering echoes from the moon valleys answered and answered, Pretrie, Pretrie, Pretrie, down and down, almost to the foot of the small mountain…
Interestingly, here is the second and last stanza of Tennyson’s poem:
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Harlan Ellison lives in a “Xanadu-like Hollywood hideout (aptly nicknamed the Lost Aztec Temple of Mars).”
No comments:
Post a Comment