Dear Mike,
      Goodness me, this seems such a flattened account of an eventful life,
with no feeling of period coming across to me.
  It does seem a bit of a missed opportunity to me.
Kind regards,
   grasshopper

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 9:54 AM
Subject: [THE-WORKS] new sub: Claire Clairmont


Claire Clairmont And Allegra

It is not true to say that her soul was withered
within her by the death of her five-year-old child,
though she said herself she had never again smiled
absolutely; without happiness she could still be happy.

Far from familiar scenes she stepped on strange stairs
to her room´s cold and lonely austerity.
But she often remarked, those whom posterity
had honoured with greatness were numbered among her friends,

though her passage through life had been solitary.
And when she died, in a country remote from her
daughter´s grave, the shawl, her lover´s last gift to her
sixty years earlier, was laid in the coffin.

When violet evening clouds were edged with orange,
reflected in still water, she watched the day´s slow wane.
And though this scene could not remove her pain,
she never tried to believe that her loss negated its beauty.




Mike