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Verse 

The Lady of the Lake (1810)

• The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
  Where danced the moon on Monan’s rill,
  And deep his midnight lair had made
  In lone Glenartney’s hazel shade.
  • Canto I, stanza 1.

• With head upraised, and look intent,
  And eye and ear attentive bent,
  And locks flung back, and lips apart,
  Like monument of Grecian art,
  In listening mood, she seemed to stand,
  The guardian Naiad of the strand.
  • Canto I, stanza 17.

• And ne’er did Grecian chisel trace
  A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace
  Of finer form or lovelier face.
  • Canto I, stanza 18.

• A foot more light, a step more true,
  Ne’er from the heath-flower dash’d the dew.
  • Canto I, stanza 18.

• On his bold visage middle age
  Had slightly pressed its signet sage,
  Yet had not quenched the open truth
  And fiery vehemence of youth;
  Forward and frolic glee was there,
  The will to do, the soul to dare,
  The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire,
  Of hasty love or headlong ire.
  • Canto I, stanza 21.

• Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er,
  Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
  Dream of battled fields no more,
  Days of danger, nights of waking.
  • Canto I, stanza 31.

• Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!
  • Canto II, stanza 19.

• Some feelings are to mortals given
  With less of earth in them than heaven;
  And if there be a human tear
  From passion’s dross refined and clear,
  A tear so limpid and so meek
  It would not stain an angel’s cheek,
  ‘Tis that which pious fathers shed
  Upon a duteous daughter’s head!
  • Canto II, stanza 22.

• Time rolls his ceaseless course.
  • Canto III, stanza 1.

• Like the dew on the mountain,
  Like the foam on the river,
  Like the bubble on the fountain,
  Thou art gone, and forever!
  • Canto III, stanza 16 (Coronach, stanza 3).

• The rose is fairest when ‘t is budding new,
  And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
  The rose is sweetest wash’d with morning dew,
  And love is loveliest when embalm’d in tears.
  • Canto IV, stanza 1.

• Art thou a friend to Roderick?
  • Canto IV, stanza 30.

• Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
  From its firm base as soon as I.
  • Canto V, stanza 10.

• Respect was mingled with surprise,
  And the stern joy which warriors feel
  In foeman worthy of their steel.
  • Canto V, stanza 10.

• Who o’er the herd would wish to reign,
  Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain!
  Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
  And fickle as a changeful dream;
  Fantastic as a woman’s mood,
  And fierce as Frenzy’s fever’d blood.
  Thou many-headed monster thing,
  Oh who would wish to be thy king!
  • Canto V, stanza 30.

• Where, where was Roderick then!
  One blast upon his bugle-horn
  Were worth a thousand men.
  • Canto VI, stanza 18.

Today is the birthday of Edna Ferber (Kalamazoo, Michigan; August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968 New York City); novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big (1924), Show Boat (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), Cimarron (1930; adapted into the 1931 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Giant (1952; made into the 1956 film of the same name) and Ice Palace (1958), which also received a film adaptation in 1960.

Giant stars Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean and features Carroll Baker, Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Mercedes McCambridge, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo, Rod Taylor, Elsa Cárdenas and Earl Holliman.

Giant was the last of James Dean’s three films as a leading actor, and earned him his second and last Academy Award nomination – he was killed in a car crash before the film was released. His friend Nick Adams was called in to do some voice dubbing for Dean’s role.  In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film egistry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Ferber was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of wits who met for lunch every day at the Algonquin Hotel in New York. Ferber and another member of the Round Table, Alexander Woollcott, were long-time enemies, their antipathy lasting until Woollcott’s death in 1943, although Howard Teichmann states in his biography of Woollcott that their feud was due to a misunderstanding. According to Teichmann, Ferber once described Woollcott as “a New Jersey Nero who has mistaken his pinafore for a toga”.

Ferber collaborated with Round Table member George S. Kaufman on several plays presented on Broadway: Minick (1924), The Royal Family (1927), Dinner At Eight (1932), The Land Is Bright (1941), Stage Door (1936), and Bravo! (1948).

Ferber never married, had no children, and is not known to have engaged in a romance or sexual relationship.  In her early novel Dawn O’Hara, the title character’s aunt even remarks, “Being an old maid was a great deal like death by drowning – a really delightful sensation when you ceased struggling.” Ferber did take a maternal interest in the career of her niece Janet Fox, an actress who performed in the original Broadway casts of Ferber’s plays Dinner at Eight (1932) and Stage Door (1936).

Ferber was known for being outspoken and having a quick wit. On one occasion, she led other Jewish guests in leaving a house party after learning the host was anti-Semitic.  Once, after a man joked about how her suit made her resemble a man, she replied, “So does yours.”

The quality of her work was so high that many reviewers believed a man to have written her narratives under a pseudonym of a woman.