Ninth House (Leigh Bardugo) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

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Others may falter and take the false step. What penalty but pride? Ours is the calling of the final trumpet on the horseman’s last ride.

Ours is the answer given without pause and none too soon. Death waits on black wings and we stand hoplite, hussar, dragoon.

—“To the Men of Lethe,” Cabot Collins (Jonathan Edwards College, ’55)

Cabsy wasn’t actually any good as far as poets go. Seems to have missed the last forty years of verse and just wants to write Longfellow. It’s ungenerous to carp, what with him losing his hands and all, but I’m not sure even that justifies two hours cooped up at Il Bastone, listening to him read from his latest masterpiece while poor Lon Richardson is stuck turning the pages.

—Lethe Days Diary of Carl Roehmer (Branford College ’54)