Pylimitics

From The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot, 1924

“I. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.”

From Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, about 1400

General Prologue, translated into modern English by Henry Sweet

“When April with its sweet showers has pierced March’s drought to the root, bathing every vein in such liquid by whose virtue the flower is engendered, and when Zephyrus with his sweet breath has also enlivened the tender plants in every wood and field, and the young sun is halfway through Aries, and small birds that sleep all night with an open eye make melodies (their hearts so goaded by Nature), then people long to go on pilgrimages, and palmers seek faraway shores and distant saints known in sundry lands, and especially they wend their way to Canterbury from every shire of England to seek the holy blessed martyr, who helped them when they were ill.”

From Pudd’nhead Wilson and Other Stories, by Mark Twain, 1894

“April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.”