Elsie Horton
Here is Elsie Horton at age 99 when I first met her, declaiming by heart the following poem of Edna St Vincent Millay:
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,—let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
Imagine Elsie’s passion — when she gets to the second verse’s “stretcheth me apart,” she throws her arms wide to the world. Magnificent.
Elsie Horton took her leave on January 29th, 2016 at the age of 102,
but her ways will stay with me.
Thanks for his Susa! For me, new pictures of Tante Elsie!
cool!