Welcome to this tiny moss piglet’s eyelash’s undetectable speck of dust quantum universe’s teensiest inhabitant’s space on the Internets! If you might find parts 1 (with backstory links), 2, and 3 of interest, please clickity clack on back and take a peek. Or rebound to do a your version of a dive-in here:

Series to E.      		4

Oh, weak and selfish I have been!
I who pronounced my conscience clear
But heaped my wrath on other men
Who held no girl’s affection dear!

But no! – no man can say of me
I ever played the cruel part
Of him who voluntarily
Would break a trustful maiden’s heart.

Yet I am guilty! – O strange, strange sin
Which being kind is cruel instead!
And I am the worst heartless of men
Following my heart where it led!

***

Relentless doubt obscures my eyes
And opens my heart with icy pain, - 
Till the sweet waters of hope arise
Warming and healing the wounds again.

O cruel doubt! O wavering hope! – 
Tossing my reason to and fro-
What can I do but blindly grope
And follow my heart where it would go?

O strange, strange life! – Dear Powers above,
Beyond the moon and the pale starlight,
Fold, Fold me in creation’s love,
And the soft curtain of the night!

End page 4

to be continued…

Oh sweet David Lee! You are one smitten kitten for sure. Or passionate pup? Either way, I am certain you were the bees knees and the goat at wooing beautiful Emily B. in the gorgeous rural countryside of Edgecombe County, North Carolina.

Prior to the 19th century, this area of North Carolina was home to the Tuscarora Native American tribe who began departing once English settlers appropriated lands for their private use. There are local records of: a John Stewart (Stuart/Steward) in 1674 bequeathing a frying pan and other items upon his death, a Richard Bond in 1728 bequeathing assets to Sarah Bond, and in 1752 a Joseph Anderson bequeathing 15£ to a number of people upon his death.

73 years prior to David penning love sonnets, Union General Edward E. Potter entered Edgecombe County, destroying supply chains for the Confederate militia (Potter’s Raid). Many local enslaved people left the area during the Civil War to fight with the Union Armies in all-black regiments. Two years after Potter’s Raid, in 1865, the first all black incorporated town of Princeville was established by former enslaved people in Edgecombe County. In 1936, at the time of David’s love sonnets, Edgecombe County was about 50% white and 50% black, with crops of cotton, tobacco, wheat, peanuts, and corn along with cattle and chickens with a booming population (up 26% from the 1930 census). One year after David’s sonnets, in 1937, the first new-deal electrical cooperative began generating in the area. Today’s Edgecombe County is about 60% African American and remains primarily rural.

We have one page remaining, y’all. Let’s just take a moment to savor that July 4th full moon booming economy optimistic deeply felt passionate pain of love from August 12, 1936. I bet they carefully carved their initials into some tree with a heart around it.

Love, Ms Herisme xoxo

Hello. How are you? Do you wish that your name was Felix Mittermeier or that you could have drinks with someone named Felix Mittermeier? Just me then? Alrighty… makes sense. But if Felix lives in a house with the number ’27’ in it, then we are all in (unless there is a leather sofa of dubious color or colour, like blue).