Daniel in the Lion’s Den
BOOK VIII and IX Summer Serialization
BOOK VIII, THE ARGUMENT, online:
“Dante guides the Persona to Chartres Cathedral. Through the labyrinth, the Queen of Heaven. Europe, a hallowed tale, in colored glass. Erasmus returns to London, with the Persona, to outside Westminster Abbey. Browning’s poem “Christmas Eve” opens the door. Tennyson, a cordial reception and then a dressing down. The Federation of the World. Blake and Milton stroll over from St. Margaret’s Church. Milton guides the Persona to what Blake called, so rightly, “Englands green & pleasant land.” A simple parish church, surrounding graves, a church perhaps Thomas Hardy had restored, in need again of his services. A prayer. And the Lady of the Lake. Excalibur. Arthur returns. An inscription on the shining blade. Wainamoinen, along with Sigurd, Beowulf, and the Valkyries, lift the Persona from the Isle of green to a grove of green, turning toward early fall, as through a swirling tunnel of time, to a birch bench. Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy, along the path, discusses his beliefs, mourns his mistakes, grieves for Russia’s collapse into the crevasse. Two young poets swept away into the gulag emerge to carry the Persona from Russia, with Hadji Murad, heading south.”
https://books.fglaysher.com/
BOOK IX, THE ARGUMENT:
“A house in Konya, Turkey, ancient Iconium, where St. Paul preached the Gospel. Around and around. Ethereal music and chanting. Another world. Rumi longing for the Beloved, the scent of her tresses, through fields of flowers to a riverbank of reeds. Attar and a soaring flock of birds fly the Persona, from the plain of Konya, that Valley of Search, to another plane, through Seven Valleys of the Soul, down into India and the plain of Agra. Leaving the Persona in Emperor Akbar’s city of Fatehpur Sikri, before the Ibadat Khana, the House of Worship, on the Pachisi Courtyard. Akbar’s court poet Faizi receives the Persona, along with many poet mystics and Sufis of India. Persuaded by Tagore, given the trials of the time, Rahman Baba, an Afghan Pashtun, comes down from his mountain village to confer with the Poet of the Moon. Evoking the majesty of human history, Lord Alfred Tennyson extols Akbar’s dream. The many oceans mingle. The dancing girls on the Pachisi Courtyard.”
https://books.fglaysher.com/
