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    VERSES Occasioned by a Young Lady’s asking the Author, What was a Cure for Love?

    From me, my Dear, O seek not to receive What e’en deep-read Experience cannot give. We may, indeed, from the Physician’s skill Some Med’cine find to cure the body’s ill. But who e’er found the physic for the soul, Or made th’ affections bend to his controul? When thro’ the blaze of passion objects show How dark ‘s the shade! how bright the colours glow! All the rous’d soul with transport’s overcome, And the mind’s surly Monitor is dumb.

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    Thomas Godfrey The Invitation Poem

    DAMON. Haste! Sylvia! haste, my charming Maid! Let’s leave these fashionable toys; Let’s seek the shelter of some shade, And revel in ne’er fading joys. See spring in liv’ry gay appears, And winter’s chilly blasts are fled; Each grove its leafy honours rears, And meads their lovely verdure spread!

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    Dithyrambic on Wine | Godfrey Thomas

    Godfrey’s The Court of Fancy (1762) was the first, and most pronounced, American use of Chaucerian work (in this case Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Parlement of Foules; circa 1378–1381) that broke free of traditional eighteenth-century verse. Included in Juvenile Poems on Various Subjects, it emphasized collegiality, which was a testament to Godfrey’s appreciation of the circle of artists he had befriended in Philadelphia. This theme is evident in his drinking song, “Dithyrambic on Wine”: Come! Let Mirth our hours employ, The jolly God inspires; The rosy juice our bosom fires, And tunes our souls to joy. -Godfrey, Thomas (playwright)

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    Godfrey Thomas Playwright of The Week

    Son of Thomas Godfrey (1704–1749), a Philadelphia glazier and member of Benjamin Franklin’s Junto Club, Godfrey produced some significant work in his short life. Well known in literary circles in Philadelphia, he was a close friend of the poet Nathaniel Evans and the college provost William Smith. In 1758 he left Philadelphia for Wilmington, North Carolina, to enter business.

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    Derek Walcott Poetry: A Far Cry from Africa

     A Far Cry From Africa By Derek Walcott, Nobel Literature Laureate, Saint Lucia, West Indies. A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies, Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt. Corpses are scattered through a paradise. Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: ’Waste no compassion on these separate dead!’ Statistics justify and scholars seize The salients of colonial policy. What is that to the white child hacked in bed? To savages, expendable as Jews?

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    The Birth of The Alfred Fagon Award

    The circumstances  concerning Alfred Fagon’s death was quite contestable since most people wasn’t quite sure based on the information posted online regarding his death, required some further explanation. On the 29th August 1986  Alfred Fagon experienced a fatal heart attack while jogging home. The police at the time proclaimed that they  were not able to locate any identifiable documents on him, as a result he was given a pauper’s funeral. When he did not turn up for a meeting at the BBC they contacted his agent Harriet Cruickshank who eventually discovered what had happened to him. Alfred Fagon’s friends and family decided to set up an award in his name, to celebrate…