Things got kind of busy the last half of our vacation, but I did find time to read, make notes, and write, even if I didn’t have quite enough time to post. Here’s another striking passage from L.M. Montgomery’s “The Red Room.” If you have ideas about different ways to break the lines, please share them in the comments — I’d love to see them!
Alicia at the Ball
Her gown was of white, and there was nothing
I could liken the stuff to save moonshine
falling athwart a frosted pane, and out from it
swelled her gleaming breast and arms, so bare
that it seemed to me a shame
to look upon them. Yet it could not be denied
they were of wondrous beauty, white
as polished marble.
And all about her snowy throat and rounded
arms, and in the masses of her splendid hair, were sparkling,
gleaming stones, with hearts of pure light, which I know
to have been diamonds, but knew not then, for never
had I seen aught of their like.
And I gazed at her, drinking
in her beauty until my soul was filled, as she stood
like some goddess before her worshiper.
– L.M. Montgomery, “The Red Room”
(from Among the Shadows, edited by Rea Wilmshurst, 1991 Bantam edition, p. 164)
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