now, this Tuesday last, inaugural in the series

of 13 lectures I'm offering once more this fine

warm spring, and, I trust, for many a gilded

decade that awaits if Time's Winged Chariot

advances not too swiftly and sweeps too near,

for, as a less-gifted poet "from across the pond"—

to risk a moment the colloquial—once wrote,

"I've miles to go before I sleep." The teacher's

righter than he knows this time, about Hawaiian,

how with each breath we live and die most modestly.

And true we must at last retire, our brief candles

gutter out, have their light in ashes Sir Thomas

Browne's Urn Burial sifted three centuries ago,

physician's calm reserve scant years succeeding

adored father of doomed Cleopatra and Juliet,

poor Ophelia, true Marina, maddened Queen

knife-wielding Lady with the Spot, fool Lear's

slatternly and vicious Regan and cruel Goneril

both eager for eyes plucked out, pure Cordelia

dead, too late known, slandered Desdemona

losing love and life for a linen handkerchief—

Movie stars, us gals and guys writ bigger-like?

We all seem messengers, our dispatches double-

edged, obscure, code not easy to decipher, sent

bard-like down the inky nib by some unfaithful

too-human muse or god forever reaching for a

star and always falling short, ever-smitten and

desirous but clearly unable and afraid to love.