WHEN ELEPHANTS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOMED
Ray Bradbury
HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB
Copyright © Ray Bradbury 1954, 1957, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973
Cover design by Mike Topping.
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014 Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Ray Bradbury asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007539932
Version: 2014–07–18
THIS ONE TO THE MEMORY OF
my grandmother Minnie Davis Bradbury and my grandfather Samuel Hinkston Bradbury, and my brother Samuel and my sister Elizabeth Jane, long lost in the years but now remembered.
Table of Contents
Pretend at Being Blind, Which Calls Truth Near
The Boys Across the Street Are Driving My Young Daughter Mad
Old Ahab’s Friend, and Friend to Noah, Speaks His Piece
When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed
Darwin, Wandering Home at Dawn
Telling Where the Sweet Gums Are
Emily Dickinson, Where Are You? Herman Melville Called Your Name Last Night in His Sleep!
O Give a Fig for Newton, Praise for Him!
Women Know Themselves; All Men Wonder
All Flesh Is One; What Matter Scores?
Christ, Old Student in a New School
If You Will Wait Just Long Enough, All Goes
Old Mars, Then Be a Hearth to Us
The Thing That Goes By Night: The Self That Lazes Sun
A Train Station Sign Viewed from an Ancient Locomotive Passing Through Long after Midnight
Please to Remember the Fifth of November: A Birthday Poem for Susan Marguerite