JOLLY DAYS

Melted Into Air

The patches of sleep that punctuate a life, which ends with a long sleep, doesn't seem to have given any rest to John Updike in this uneasy meditation on death. Mulling over the last years, last words, of great writers, Updike seems, in his twilight, to be trying to come to terms. It is a thoughtful, worthy piece, by a fine writer.

Here are Shakespeare's moving, resonant parting words, placed on the lips of Prospero:

These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous
palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.