Not faint canaries, but ambrosial

Here, then, at home, by no more storms distrest,
Folding laborious hands we sit, wings furled;
Here in close perfume lies the rose-leaf curled,
Here the sun stands and knows not east nor west,
Here no tide runs; we have come, last and best,
From the wide zone through dizzying circles hurled,
To that still centre where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.

Lay on thy whips, O Love, that we upright,
Poised on the perilous point, in no lax bed
May sleep, as tension at the verberant core
Of music sleeps; for, if thou spare to smite,
Staggering, we stoop, stooping, fall dumb and dead,
And, dying, so, sleep our sweet sleep no more.

-Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night


Lord and Lady Peter, I know you are somewhere loving and being loved. I have never met anyone in real life who loves you as much as I do, and I am still waiting for that day that I will say, "Placetne, magistra?" and someone will say, "Placet."

When that day comes, I'll make a pilgrimage to Dorothy L Sayers' grave and thank her.