New Year

At the end of this most beautiful year I only want to wish everyone Good Luck with the New Year, and with the words by James Blunt post the final poem this year.


No Bravery
There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
Tears drying on their face.
He has been here.
Brothers lie in shallow graves.
Fathers lost without a trace.
A nation blind to their disgrace,
Since he's been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

Houses burnt beyond repair.
The smell of death is in the air.
A woman weeping in despair says,
He has been here.
Tracer lighting up the sky.
It's another families' turn to die.
A child afraid to even cry out says,
He has been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
But no one asks the question why,
He has been here.
Old men kneel to accept their fate.
Wives and daughters cut and raped.
A generation drenched in hate.
Says, he has been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

Your Eyes

NOT from the stars do I my judgment pluck
And yet methinks I have astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well,
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As ‘Truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;’
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
‘Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.’

William Shakespeare

Christmas

Now it is Christmas, and what have we done? Well, I have finished this semester and I am content with that. I was also asked by a friend about poems by George Herbert, and this Christmas poem is my Herbert poem. Have a merry Christmas.

Christmas

The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul's a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is Thy word: the streams, Thy grace
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers
Outsing the daylight hours.
Then will we chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord; wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.
I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.
Then will we sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev'n His beams sing, and my music shine.

George Herbert

It Can't Rain All the Time

I hear pounding feet in the,
in the streets below, and the,
and the women crying and the,
and the children know that there,
that there's something wrong,
and it's hard to belive that love will prevail.

Oh it won't rain all the time.
The sky won't fall forever.
And though the night seems long,
your tears won't fall forever.

Oh, when I'm lonely,
I lie awake at night
and I wish you were here.
I miss you.
Can you tell me
is there something more to belive in?
Or is this all there is?

In the pounding feet, in the,
In the streets below, and the,
And the window breaks and,
And a woman falls, there's,
There's something wrong, it's,
It's so hard to belive that love will prevail.

Oh it won't rain all the time.
The sky won't fall forever.
And though the night seems long,
your tears won't fall, your tears won't fall, your tears won't fall
forever.

Last night I had a dream.
You came into my room,
you took me into your arms.
Whispering and kissing me,
and telling me to still belive.
But then the emptiness of a burning sea against which we see
our darkest of sadness.

Until I felt safe and warm.
I fell asleep in your arms.
When I awoke I cried again for you were gone.
Oh, can you hear me?

It won't rain all the time.
The sky won't fall forever.
And though the night seems long,
your tears won't fall forever.
It won't rain all the time
The sky won't fall forever.
And though the night seems long,
your tears won't fall, your tears won't fall,
your tears won't fall
forever.

Jane Siberry

So She Dances

Late posting today while I try to work out my last essay this semester. I rembered a girl I once knew, I saw her dance and it has stayed with me all ever after. And now Josh Groban sings about it.

So She Dances
A waltz when she walks in the room
She blows back the hair from her face
She turns to the window to sway in the moonlight
Even her shadow has grace
A waltz for the girl out of reach
She lifts her hands up to the sky
She moves with the music
The song is her lover
The melody's making her cry
So she dances
In and out of the crowd like a glance
This romance is
From afar calling me silently

A waltz for the chance I should take
But how will I know where to start?
She's spinning between constellations and dreams
Her rhythm is my beating heart

So she dances
In and out of the crowd like a glance
This romance is
From afar calling me silently

I can't keep on watching forever
I give up this view just to tell her

When I close my eyes I can see
The spotlights are bright on you and me
We've got the floor
And you're in my arms
How could I ask for more?

So she dances
In and out of the crowd like a glance
This romance is
From afar calling me silently

I can't keep on watching forever
And I'm givin' up this view just to tell her.

Josh Groban

A Child of the Snows

There should be winter in the air at this time, but it isn't. It still feels like autumn; it's rain in the air, it's almost always dark, and the wind is howling at night. So since I was once A Child of the Snows I find comfort in Chesterton.


There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,

And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.

Never we know but in sleet and in snow,

The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.

And at night we win to the ancient inn

Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.

The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,

For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a Child comes forth alone.

G.K. Chesterton

Dark Beauty

I found a copy of Speculum Amantis published in 1889, this volume contains rare poems and song from the seventeenth century. This is one of the poems which I thought was beautiful.

BLACK eyes, in your dark orbs doth lie
My ill or happy destiny.
If with clear looks you me behold,
You give me treasures full of gold;
If you dart forth disdainful rays,
To your own dye you turn my days.
That lamp which all the stars doth blind
To modest Cynthia is less kind,
Though you do wear, to make you bright,
No other dress than that of night.
He glitters only in the day;
You in the dark your beams display.
The cunning thief, that lurks for prize,
At some dark corner watching lies ;
So that heart-robbing God doth stand
In those black gems, with shaft in hand,
To rifle me of what I hold
More precious far than Indian gold.
Ye pow'rful necromantic eyes,
Who in your circles strictly pries
Will find that Cupid with his dart
In you doth practise the black art ;
And by those spells I am possest,
Tries his conclusions in my breast.
Though from those objects frowns arise,
Some kind of frowns become black eyes,
As pointed diamonds being set
Cast greater lustre out of jet.
Those pieces we esteem most rare,
Which in night-shadows postured are.
Darkness in churches congregates the sight;
Devotion strays in open daring light.

James Howell

Bloodsucking

There are so many things one would like to change, some people one wished one had never met, there are some who suck all the life out of you.

The Vampire

You who, like the stab of a knife,
Entered my plaintive heart;
You who, strong as a herd
Of demons, came, ardent and adorned,

To make your bed and your domain
Of my humiliated mind
— Infamous bitch to whom I'm bound
Like the convict to his chain,

Like the stubborn gambler to the game,
Like the drunkard to his wine,
Like the maggots to the corpse,
— Accurst, accurst be you!

I begged the swift poniard
To gain for me my liberty,
I asked perfidious poison
To give aid to my cowardice.

Alas! both poison and the knife
Contemptuously said to me:
"You do not deserve to be freed
From your accursed slavery,

Fool! — if from her domination
Our efforts could deliver you,
Your kisses would resuscitate
The cadaver of your vampire!"

Baudelaire

Love poem

Don't know why this came into my head, but I remembered a poem I once read by Ginsberg, it was, in its own way, a beautiful love poem.


Love Poem on Theme by Whitman


I'll go into the bedroom silently and lie down between the bridgegroom and
the bride,
those bodies fallen from heaven stretched out waiting naked and restless,
arms resting over their eyes in the darkness,
bury my face in their shoulders and breasts, breathing their skin,
and stroke and kiss neck and mouth and make back be open and known,
legs raised up crook'd to recieve, cock in the darkness driven tormented and
attacking
roused up from hole to itching head,
bodies locked shuddering naked, hot hips and bottocks screwed into each
other
and eyes, eyes glinting and charming, widening into looks and abandon,
moans of movement, voices, hands in air, hands between thighs,
hands in moisture on softened hips, throbbing contraction of bellies
till the white come flow in the swirling sheets,
and the bride cry for forgiveness, and the groom be covered with tears of
passion and compassion,
and I rise up from the bed replenished with last intimate gestures and kisses
of farewell -
all before the mind wakes, behind shades and closed doors in a darkened
house
where the inhabitants roam unsatisfied in the night,
nude ghosts seeking each other out in the silence.

Allen Ginsberg

Song for thought

De Sade Soliloquay

See the light and feel my warm desire
Run through my veins like the evening sun
It will live but no eyes will see it
I'll bless your name before I die
No person in everything can shine
Yet shine you did, for the world to see
All a man hath will he give for life?
For life that's lost bleeds all over me
I'd fallen before but it never hurt like this
Don't leave me here to crawl through the mire
I'm without fault before the throne of god
Take from me the crown of sympathy
What do you think you'll see?
What do you think there will be?
Sit down! Did you see the sun?
What will we become? Great ones?
The mouths that dare not speak his name
Behold them, raised, complete and fine
The battle for our lives is oh, so brief
Take my hand and please walk with me
When I was young the sun did burn my face
I let its love and warmth wash over me
The melting voice of many, in the hush of night
Whispering tongues can poison my honest truth
Come dress me with your body, and comfort me
I dreamt of a dead child in my sleep
I wear a terrible mark in my head
My clean, white bed it calls to me
I must lie down and I want you to lay with me, in sympathy
No sad "adieus" on a balcony
For one last time, just walk with me
The beautiful gate of the temple, we must be saved
For deadened, icy pain, covers all the earth

My Dying Bride

The Spider and the Poet

I saw this web once and thought of a poem I once read.


The Spider

Artist, that underneath my table
Thy curious feature hast displayed,
Who, if we may believe the fable,
Wast once a lovely, blooming maid;

Insidious, restless, watchful spider,
Fear no offcious damsel's broom;
Extend thine artful structure wider,
And spread thy banners round my room.

Wiped from the great man's costly ceiling,
Thou'rt welcome to my dusty roof;
There thou shall find a peaceful dwelling,
And undisturbed attend the woof,

Whilst I the wond'rous fabric stare at,
And think on hapless poet's fate,
Like thee confined to lonely garret,
And rudely banished rooms of state.

And as from out thy tortured body
Thou draw'st the slender strings with pain,
So does the labour like a noddy
To spin materials from his brain;

He, for some flutt'ring, tawdry creature
That made a fluster in his eye,
And that's a conquest little better
Than thine o'er captive butterfly.

Thus far 'tis plain you both agree,
Your deaths perhaps may better show it;
'Tis ten to one but penury
Ends both the spider and the poet.

Edward Littleton

On listening to easy music

I must say that women are not easily pleased, and they are even harder to understand, as our dear friend Freud once declared. Today I sat at the library trying to read while listening to some easy music (Elizabethan madrigals). One song struck me as especially cool.

Have a beautiful Halloween.

My mistress had a little dog whose name was Pretty Royal,
Who neither hunted sheep nor hog, but was without denial
A tumbler fine, that might be seen to wait upon a fairy queen.
Upon his mistress he would wait in courteous wise and humble,
And with his craft and false deceit, when she would have him tumble,
Of coneys in the pleasant prime, he would kill twenty at a time.

The goddess which Diana hight among her beagles dainty
Had not a hound so fair and white, nor graced with such beauty;
And yet his beauty was not such, but his conditions were as rich.

But out, alas? I'll speak no more. My heart with grief doth shake;
This pretty dog was wounded sore e'en for his mistress sake:
A beastly man or manly beast knock'd out his brains and so I rest.

A trial royal, royal a trial, a trial! O yes!
Ye hounds and beagles all, if ye sat in Appleton Hall:
Would you not judge that out of doubt Tyburn were fit for such a lout?

William Byrd

Songs of Darkness, Words of Light

When autumn arrives darkness is likely to follow close behind. The symbol of night is almost at its peak. When reading William Blake's poems one get a feeling of calmness; night time is the right time:
The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.

It is Halloween and it's time to enjoy the darkness and listen to the Songs of the Night.

The Wreckage of My Flesh

Loathsome I've become.
A creature so undone.
Wretched and broken.
Cannot find my faith.
Any God will do.
Nothing said is new.
Nothing said is true.
Fly away my hope.

The embrace of shade holds me dear
Eats me away.
Loose the dogs of disgrace upon me.
I have no faith.
Raise the poor outcast I have become.
I am undone.
Calm is the air. Still is the sea.
The valley of death keeps calling me.

Rest my eyes from the world.
This dying place, it's so absurd.
Oh, Christ above, whom I love.
Lost to me. My snow white dove.
Make this day like the night.
songs of darnkess. Words of light.
Pulling down my heart.
I won't forget my lovers heart.

With utter loathing and scorn,
I was somehow born.
Strewn in black decay.
None shall I obey.
The wreckage of my flesh
The nakedness of my death.

My Dying Bride

Bottom

I met this professor, Clive Wilmer, a very nice chap, he did some lectures at my school and then he read us some of his poems. One poem in particular caught my attention, it was a Shakespearian poem, about a character I fancy very much and a play I like. The poem touches upon many of the Bard's plays, which I find extremely amusing.

Bottom's Dream

It shall be called 'Bottom's Dream', because it hath no bottom...

I was a weaver, and I wove
The moody fabric of my dream.
By day I laboured at the loom
And glimpsed the image of a love
I now know bottomless.

We were young men. We played our parts.
We schooled ourselves in the quiet wood.
By night the moon, who draws the flood,
Tugged at the rhythms of our hearts
And they were bottomless.

I loved a girl who was a boy;
I took my stand and beat my breast.
Yet what was I but fool and beast,
Who did not so much speak as bray
In bombast bottomless?

I trusted I had mastery
Until one night, being left alone,
I snorted at the wandering moon
In terror of the mystery,
Which seemed quite bottomless,

And out of that she spoke, who had
No voice, although she stirred my sense,
Who touched me, though she had no hands,
And led me where you cannot lead
Since it is bottomless.

I tried to speak: again I brayed.
I pinched and scratched my face: coarse hairs
Were crisping over cheeks and ears.
And when she drew me in, she made
The whole world bottomless.

Nothing possessed me. So she said
Do not desire to leave this wood.
Among the mossy clefts I hid
With petals where she pressed my head,
Desire being bottomless.

A most rare vision, such a thing
As who should say what such things be:
My terror turned to ecstasy,
The one much like the other, being
Both of them bottomless.

And then the change. The sun came up
Brash as a brassy hunting-horn.
I woke and, yes, I was a man.
Was I myself though? Self, like sleep,
May well be bottomless.

New moon tonight. Another dream
To act. They laugh at our dismay.
Oh but it's nothing. Only play.
Except we just don't feel the same,
For play is bottomless.


And so the story ends. My eyes
Are sore with weeping, but I laugh
(I who was seen to take my life),
For, having been an ass, I'm wise
And bottomless. Bottomless.

Clive Wilmer

Flight of Crows

People once believed that when someone dies
a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead.
But sometimes something so bad happens that
a terrible sadness is carried with it, and the soul can't rest.
Then sometimes, just sometimes,
the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.

A building gets torched, all that is left is ashes.
I used to think that was true about everything--
families, friends, feelings.
But now I know that sometimes, if love proves real,
two people who are meant to be together--
nothing can keep them apart.

If the people we love are stolen from us,
the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.
Buildings burn, people die ...
but real love is forever.


C

Nothing else matters

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say
and nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
but I know

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
but I know

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us, something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they say
never cared for games they play
never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
and I know

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
No, nothing else matters

M

Destroy

I step out of my skin,
You wouldn't know me now,
Couldn't you go away?
Shouldn't I?

Leave me the hard part.
It's all I want,
I need.

I won't be,
Your soft one,
I won't be incircled.
You might become,
Something I need.

If you must know,
Must know,
Get closer.

Should I go, away?
With the dust of your skin
In my-

Don't show me your weakness,
I can't rely on you,
To know by now.

Don't show me your weakness,
I might become,
Something you need.

Something you need...
Something you need...
To Destroy.

THC

Witchcraft by a Picture

I FIX mine eye on thine, and there
Pity my picture burning in thine eye ;
My picture drown'd in a transparent tear,
When I look lower I espy ;
Hadst thou the wicked skill
By pictures made and marr'd, to kill,
How many ways mightst thou perform thy will?

But now I've drunk thy sweet salt tears,
And though thou pour more, I'll depart ;
My picture vanished, vanish all fears
That I can be endamaged by that art ;
Though thou retain of me
One picture more, yet that will be,
Being in thine own heart, from all malice free.

J.D.

The Harlequin of Dreams

Swift, through some trap mine eyes have never found,
Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep,
Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap
Upon my spirit's stage. Then Sight and Sound,
Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound,
And all familiar Forms that firmly keep
Man's reason in the road, change faces, peep
Betwixt the legs and mock the daily round.
Yet thou canst more than mock: sometimes my tears
At midnight break through bounden lids -- a sign
Thou hast a heart: and oft thy little leaven
Of dream-taught wisdom works me bettered years.
In one night witch, saint, trickster, fool divine,
I think thou'rt Jester at the Court of Heaven!

S.L.

Dance of the Hanged Men

On the black gallows, one-armed fellow,
The paladins are dancing, dancing,
The thin paladins of the devil,
The skeletons of Saladins.

Sir Beelzebub pulls by the rope
His small black puppets grinning at the sky
And slapping their heads with a backhand blow,
Makes them dance, dance to the sound of an old noel!

And the jostled puppets entwine their thin arms:
Like black organ-pipes, their breasts [pierced with light
Which once noble ladies pressed,
Struck against one another for a long time in hideous love-making.

Hurray! You gay dancers who have no more bellies!
You can cavort about, the stages are so long!
Hop! don't try to know whether it is a battle or a dance!
Beelzebub in a rage saws on his fiddles!

Oh the hard heels! one's sandal never wears out!
Almost all have taken off their shirts of skin;
The rest is not embarrassing and can be seen without scandal.
On the skulls the snow sets a white hat:

The crow is a plume on these cracked heads;
A piece of flesh is loose on their thin chins:
You could say, as they turn about in dark skirmishes,
They are stiff knights clashing pasteboard armor.

Hurrah! the breeze whistles in the great ball of skeletons!
The black gallows moans like an iron organ!
Wolves give answer from violet forests:
On the horizon the sky is a hellish red...

Hello! shake those funereal braggarts
Who, surly, with their fat broken fingers, tell
Their beads of love on their pale vertebrae:
You dead, this is no monastery!

Oh! there in the middle of the dance of Death
Leaps into the red sky a great mad skeleton
Carried off by his impetus, like a horse rearing:
And, still feeling the rope tight around his neck,

Clenches his small fingers on his thighbone which cracks,
With shouts similar to jeers,
And, like a clown going back into his booth,
Springs back into the dance to the singing of bones.

On the black gallows, one-armed fellow,
The paladins are dancing, dancing,
The thin Paladins of the devil,
The skeletons of Saladins.

St.James's Park

A ramble in St. Jame's Park

Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
From those that diet at the Bear),
When I, who still take care to see
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St. James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
But though St. James has th' honor on 't,
'Tis consecrate to prick and cunt.
There, by a most incestuous birth,
Strange woods spring from the teeming earth;
For they relate how heretofore,
When ancient Pict began to whore,
Deluded of his assignation
(Jilting, it seems, was then in fashion),
Poor pensive lover, in this place
Would frig upon his mother's face;
Whence rows of mandrakes tall did rise
Whose lewd tops fucked the very skies.
Each imitative branch does twine
In some loved fold of Aretine,
And nightly now beneath their shade
Are buggeries, rapes, and incests made.
Unto this all-sin-sheltering grove
Whores of the bulk and the alcove,
Great ladies, chambermaids, and drudges,
The ragpicker, and heiress trudges.
Carmen, divines, great lords, and tailors,
Prentices, poets, pimps, and jailers,
Footmen, fine fops do here arrive,
And here promiscuously they swive.

JW

What a wonderful world

Le Mal

While the red-stained mouths of machine guns ring
Across the infinite expanse of day;
While red or green, before their postouring King,
The massed battalions break and melt away;

And while a monstrous frenzy runs a course
That makes of a thousand men a smoking pile -
Poor fools! - dead, in summer, in the grass,
On Nature's breast, who meant these men to smile;

There is a God, who smiles upon us through
The gleam of gold, the incense-laden air,
Who drowses in a cloud of murmured prayer,

And only wakes when weeping mothers bow
Themselves in anguish, wrapped in old black shawls -
And their last small coin into his coffer falls.

AR

Death

City in the sea.

Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

E.A.P.

The Earl's Prologue

Allow me to be frank at the commencement. You will not like me. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like me now and you will like me a good deal less as we go on. Ladies, an announcement: I am up for it, all the time. That is not a boast or an opinion, it is bone hard medical fact. I put it round you know. And you will watch me putting it round and sigh for it. Don't." It is a deal of trouble for you and you are better off watching and drawing your conclusions from a distance than you would be if I got my tarse up your petticoats. Gentlemen. Do not despair, I am up for that as well. And the same warning applies. Still your cheesy erections till I have had my say. But later when you shag - and later you will shag, I shall expect it of you and I will know if you have let me down - I wish you to shag with my homuncular image rattling in your gonads. Feel how it was for me, how it is for me and ponder. 'Was that shudder the same shudder he sensed? Did he know something more profound? Or is there some wall of wretchedness that we all batter with our heads at that shining , livelong moment.' That is it. That is my prologue, nothing in rhyme, no protestations of modesty, you were not expecting that I hope. I am John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester and I do not want you to like me.

Rochester

Freedom and Liberty!

NOT that I love thy children, whose dull eyes
See nothing save their own unlovely woe,
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,—
But that the roar of thy Democracies,
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,	5
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea,—
And give my rage a brother——! Liberty!
For this sake only do thy dissonant cries
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades	10
Rob nations of their rights inviolate
And I remain unmoved—and yet, and yet,
These Christs that die upon the barricades,
God knows it I am with them, in some things.

OW

MirrorMask

I saw a beautiful movie yesterday called MirrorMask. Written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave McKean.

Sometimes you just want to cry

The winter here’s cold, and bitter
It’s chilled us to the bone
We haven’t seen the sun for weeks
To long too far from home
I feel just like I’m sinking
And I claw for solid ground
I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go

If all of the strength and all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace, Full of grace, My love

So it’s better this way, I said
Having seen this place before
Where everything we said and did
Hurts us all the more
Its just that we stayed, too long
In the same old sickly skin
I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go

If all of the strength and all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace, Full of grace, My love

SM

Prayer

I heard perhaps one of the most moving recordings of, in my opinion, the most beautiful of prayers "The Prayer of Saint Francis" sung by Sarah McLachland.


Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

Night Poem

As this is my last night in "freedom", before going into the hard life of the working man, I choose to devote this night and this day's post to Walt. The poet who gave us the song of himself and the song of America. But I will also devote a thought to Hopper, who's nightly image of the hawks is a favourite of mine. Have a very good night and a couple of sweet dreams to go.




I WANDER all night in my vision,

Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noise- lessly stepping and stopping,

Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,

Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill- assorted, contradictory,

Pausing, gazing, bending, stopping.

How solemn they look there, stretched and still!

How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles!

The wretched features of ennuyees, the white features of corpses, the livid faces of drunk- ards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,

The gashed bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their strong-doored rooms, the sacred idiots,

The new-born emerging from gates, and the dying emerging from gates,

The night pervades them and enfolds them.

WW

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

COME live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks	5
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,	10
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,	15
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.	20
Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing	25
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love. Chris. Marlowe

Voltaire on the Earl of Rochester

THE EARL OF ROCHESTER’S name is universally known. Mr. de St. Evremont has made very frequent mention of him, but then he has represented this famous nobleman in no other light than as the man of pleasure, as one who was the idol of the fair; but, with regard to myself, I would willingly describe in him the man of genius, the great poet. Among other pieces which display the shining imagination his lordship only could boast, he wrote some satires on the same subjects as those our celebrated Boileau made choice of. I do not know any better method of improving the taste than to compare the productions of such great geniuses as have exercised their talent on the same subject. Boileau declaims as follows against human reason in his “Satire on Man”:

And puffed with pride, this haughty thing would fain

Be think himself the only stay and prop

That holds the mighty frame of Nature up.

The skies and stars his properties must seem,

. . . . . . . .

Of all the creatures he’s the lord, he cries.

. . . . . . . .

And who is there, say you, that dares deny

So owned a truth? That may be, sir, do I.

. . . . . . . .

This boasted monarch of the world who awes

The creatures here, and with his nod gives laws

This self-named king, who thus pretends to be

The lord of all, how many lords has he?”

Der Doppelgänger

How often have you wished to be two places at the same time, like perhaps taking an oral exam and drinking beer? And when you are tired and want to sleep be able to keep on going? Well, why not?

Still ist die Nacht, es ruhen die Gassen,
In diesem Hause wohnte mein Schatz;
Sie hat schon längst die Stadt verlassen,
Doch steht noch das Haus auf demselben Platz.

Da steht auch ein Mensch und starrt in die Höhe,
Und ringt die Hände, vor Schmerzensgewalt;
Mir graust es, wenn ich sein Antlitz sehe -
Der Mond zeigt mir meine eigne Gestalt.

Du Doppelgänger! du bleicher Geselle!
Was äffst du nach mein Liebesleid,
das mich gequält auf dieser Stelle,
So manche Nacht, in alter Zeit?

Heinrich Heine

Rimbaud's Vowels

A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue : vowels,
I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins :
A, black velvety corset of brilliant flies
Which buzz around cruel smells,

Gulfs of dark shadow ; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents,
Lances of insolent glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow-parsley ;
I, crimsons, blood expectorated, smile of lovely lips
In wrath or in the raptures of penitence;

U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas,
The peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows
Which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads ;

O, sublime Trumpet full of strangely strident brass,
Silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels :
O stands for Omega, Her Eyes' deep violet glow!

Tour to Oslo

Okey, so I've been to Oslo to visit my old folks what more can I say? Well I may start to say that during my stay here in the big city I got the chance to meet up with some friends of mine from the olden days, and I must say it felt real good. I even got a chance to experience the comfy environments on the university campus, they got beer there as well as a huge stock of books, go figure. In this May month the days just fly, the most importent things should be exams and worry about how to get money to buy food during the so called non exicting month June and July (non exciting here meaning that students are not supposed to exict during these months). But since the weather is so nice, the beer taste so good and the girls are just all over the place, I believe that give me plenty of things to think about, such as maying...



Now is the month of maying,
When merry lads are playing, fa la,
Each with his bonny lass
Upon the greeny grass. Fa la.

The Spring, clad all in gladness,
Doth laugh at Winter's sadness, fa la,
And to the bagpipe's sound
The nymphs tread out their ground. Fa la.
Fie then! why sit we musing,
Youth's sweet delight refusing? Fa la.
Say, dainty nymphs, and speak,
Shall we play at barley-break? Fa la.

Thomas Morley

Today am I done

Today I finished my paper on Shakespeare and the gloomy paintings by Henry Fuseli. So I am content, I feel that I have gained new knowledge. I therefor post an engraving from the illustrated edition of Das Narrenschiff, or The Ship of Fools, by Sebastian Brant.

Of Useless Books

Tomorrow is exam day

To day the nerves are like those of a soldier springin into battle, tomorrow my mind is set on beer.

Far I hear the bugle blow
To call me where I would not go,
And the guns begin the song,
'Soldier, fly or stay for long.'

Comrade, if to turn and fly
Made a soldier never die,
Fly I would, for who would not?
'Tis sure no pleasure to be shot.

But since the man that runs away
Lives to die another day,
And cowards' funerals, when they come,
Are not wept so well at home,

Therefore, though the best is bad,
Stand and do the best, my lad;
Stand and fight and see your slain,
And take the bullet in your brain. 

A.E. Housman

The graveness of literary theory

I have in recent time been discussing the rather dry and sometimes closed society of literary theorists. This is a group of people, most often students in my case, who think that literature is a field of science which is to be taken so serious that even academic practices like law and economics sound like a walk in the park. These students, together with philosophers, feel that it is their responsibility to always comment on everything that might be elevated to an academic level. But it is also these people who tend to see that only serious pieces of literature may be regarded as "high art". So every time a text is written about such as sex or violence it is either feminism or a tragedy. This I find most frustration since through the history of literature the ones that really stand out is drunks and idealists. So, today I want to cite a poem by Yeats, who dealt with rebellion and mysticism among other things, which clearly shows my feeling towards this strange breed of people.



THE SCHOLARS

BALD heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald heads
Edit and annotate the lines
That young men, tossing on their beds,
Rhymed out in love's despair
To flatter beauty's ignorant ear.

They'll cough in the ink to the world's end;
Wear out the carpet with their shoes
Earning respect; have no strange friend;
If they have sinned nobody knows.
Lord, what would they say
Should their Catullus walk that way?

WBY

The day after yesterday

Since the day before this was devoted to the drinking of beer and wine this day should be all about contemplation, since I rarely contemplate and rather start the day with yet another bottle of beer, this day should be all about praising the wonderful liquid we call beer. And I want to do this by using the words of a well known drinker: John Wilmot.


Upon his drinking bowl

Vulcan, contrive me such a cup
As Nestor used of old;
Show all thy skill to trim it up,
Damask it round with gold.

Make it so large that, filled with sack
Up to the swelling brim,
Vast toasts on the delicious lake
Like ships at sea may swim.

Engrave not battle on its cheek:
With war I've nought to do;
I'm none of those that took Maastricht,
Nor Yarmouth leaguer knew.

Let it no name of planets tell,
Fixed stars, or constellations;
For I am no Sir Sidrophel,
Nor none of his relations.

But carve theron a spreading vine,
Then add two lovely boys;
Their limbs in amorous folds intwine,
The type of future joys.

Cupid and Bacchus my saints are,
May drink and love still reign,
With wine I wash away my cares,
And then to cunt again.

JW

Day of Fielding

Today Henry Fielding would have been 299 years. Born on this day in 1707 he became one of the major satirists during the first half of the 18th century. His works include such as Joseph Andrews, Shamela and his most famous novel Tom Jones.



“LOVE: A word properly applied to our delight in particular kinds of food; sometimes metaphorically spoken of the favorite objects of all our appetites.”
HF

Word of the day

CONVERSATION,n
A fair for the display of the minor mental
commodities, each exhibitor being too
intent upon the arrangement of his own
wares to observe those of his neighbor.

Ambrose Bierce

Hate?

I just saw a documentary on tv about "Hate -music" and the neo-nazi movement, I was a bit sad but most of all I was shocked by all the extreme hate these people posess. These people support the slaughter done by the nazis during the war and every other action done to kill people different from themselves. This might sound like a cliché but I do not think I care, when people start killing people who do not look like themselves how will the killing end?


Lo ! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not !)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

EAP

A new start

How better to start off a blog than by the words of Lord B? The lines which so perfectly describe the almost permanent state of being for a student of classical literature. The use of poems to give insight to my days of reading, drinking and wellbeing will be excessive on this blog. I will try to say something with a bit of hold and meaing now and then, when in the mood... But for now I think B's lines will do.

Lines Inscribed Upon A Cup Formed From A Skull

Start not - nor deem my spirit fled;
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaffed, like thee:
I died: let earth my bones resign;
Fill up - thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy
brood;
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of gods, than reptile's food.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?

Quaff while thou canst: another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.

Why not? since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce;
Redeemed from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs, to be of use.

LB