tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93494452024-02-08T15:41:59.511-05:00In search of a clue.In addition to my numerous other acquaintances I have still one more intimate friend—my melancholy. In the midst of pleasure, in the midst of work, he beckons to me, calls me aside, even though I remain present bodily. My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had—no wonder that I return the love!
--Soren KierkegaardQNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-13099309783789451012011-06-21T22:45:00.000-04:002011-06-21T22:45:10.199-04:00Unlikely, non-linear connection.Lullaby<br />
<br />
Lay your sleeping head, my love, <br />
Human on my faithless arm; <br />
Time and fevers burn away<br />
Individual beauty from<br />
Thoughtful children, and the grave<br />
Proves the child ephemeral: <br />
But in my arms till break of day<br />
Let the living creature lie, <br />
Mortal, guilty, but to me<br />
The entirely beautiful.<br />
Soul and body have no bounds: <br />
To lovers as they lie upon<br />
Her tolerant enchanted slope<br />
In their ordinary swoon, <br />
Grave the vision Venus sends<br />
Of supernatural sympathy, <br />
Universal love and hope; <br />
While an abstract insight wakes<br />
Among the glaciers and the rocks<br />
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.<br />
<br />
Certainty, fidelity<br />
On the stroke of midnight pass<br />
Like vibrations of a bell<br />
And fashionable madmen raise<br />
Their pedantic boring cry: <br />
Every farthing of the cost, <br />
All the dreaded cards foretell, <br />
Shall be paid, but from this night<br />
Not a whisper, not a thought, <br />
Not a kiss nor look be lost.<br />
<br />
Beauty, midnight, vision dies: <br />
Let the winds of dawn that blow<br />
Softly round your dreaming head<br />
Such a day of welcome show<br />
Eye and knocking heart may bless, <br />
Find our mortal world enough; <br />
Noons of dryness find you fed<br />
By the involuntary powers, <br />
Nights of insult let you pass<br />
Watched by every human love.<br />
<br />
--W.H.Auden<br />
<br />
We're Going to Be Friends<br />
<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IZGHTkmhxgQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
--Jack WhiteQNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-81860948977613293792011-03-31T12:07:00.001-04:002011-03-31T12:08:09.304-04:00Art vs. fashion<blockquote>Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.</blockquote><br />
<br />
--Jean CocteauQNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-56912353818652732942011-02-20T16:35:00.002-05:002011-02-20T16:35:29.715-05:00When I have fearsWhen I have fears that I may cease to be<br />
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,<br />
Before high-piled books, in charactery,<br />
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;<br />
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,<br />
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,<br />
And think that I may never live to trace<br />
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;<br />
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,<br />
That I shall never look upon thee more,<br />
Never have relish in the faery power<br />
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore<br />
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think<br />
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.<br />
<br />
John KeatsQNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-30539689681577938272011-02-16T21:41:00.000-05:002011-02-16T21:41:14.294-05:00A Cloud withdrew from the SkyA Cloud withdrew from the Sky<br />
Superior Glory be<br />
But that Cloud and its Auxiliaries<br />
Are forever lost to me<br />
<br />
Had I but further scanned<br />
Had I secured the Glow<br />
In an Hermetic Memory<br />
It had availed me now.<br />
<br />
Never to pass the Angel<br />
With a glance and a Bow<br />
Till I am firm in Heaven<br />
Is my intention now.<br />
<br />
Emily DickinsonQNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-59803168495912997092011-02-13T18:04:00.002-05:002011-02-13T18:04:45.038-05:00A Divine ImageCruelty has a human heart,<br />
And Jealousy a human face;<br />
Terror the human form divine,<br />
And Secresy the human dress.<br />
<br />
The human dress is forged iron,<br />
The human form a fiery forge,<br />
The human face a furnace sealed,<br />
The human heart its hungry gorge.<br />
<br />
William BlakeQNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-17344124679316448122011-02-04T20:44:00.002-05:002011-02-04T20:44:53.530-05:00Easter CommunionPure fasted faces draw unto this feast:<br />
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.<br />
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,<br />
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced<br />
To crosses meant for Jesu's; you whom the East<br />
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips<br />
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,<br />
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,<br />
<br />
God shall o'er-brim the measures you have spent<br />
With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze<br />
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment<br />
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.<br />
Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:<br />
Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.<br />
<br />
Gerard Manley HopkinsQNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-86373182260225430092011-01-19T14:39:00.000-05:002011-01-19T14:39:05.059-05:00Haunting"Where Did You Sleep Last Night" by Lead Belly<br />
<object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/blI2dXHyBj0?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/blI2dXHyBj0?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object><br />
"Where Did You Sleep Last Night" by Nirvana<br />
<object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iKT1P7x_Pzo?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iKT1P7x_Pzo?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object>QNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-78292352728866246272011-01-17T20:35:00.000-05:002011-01-17T20:35:08.292-05:00FancyEver let the Fancy roam, <br />
Pleasure never is at home: <br />
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, <br />
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; <br />
Then let winged Fancy wander <br />
Through the thought still spread beyond her: <br />
Open wide the mind's cage-door, <br />
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. <br />
O sweet Fancy! let her loose; <br />
Summer's joys are spoilt by use, <br />
And the enjoying of the Spring <br />
Fades as does its blossoming; <br />
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too, <br />
Blushing through the mist and dew, <br />
Cloys with tasting: What do then? <br />
Sit thee by the ingle, when <br />
The sear faggot blazes bright, <br />
Spirit of a winter's night; <br />
When the soundless earth is muffled, <br />
And the caked snow is shuffled <br />
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon; <br />
When the Night doth meet the Noon <br />
In a dark conspiracy <br />
To banish Even from her sky. <br />
Sit thee there, and send abroad, <br />
With a mind self-overaw'd, <br />
Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her! <br />
She has vassals to attend her: <br />
She will bring, in spite of frost, <br />
Beauties that the earth hath lost; <br />
She will bring thee, all together, <br />
All delights of summer weather; <br />
All the buds and bells of May, <br />
From dewy sward or thorny spray; <br />
All the heaped Autumn's wealth, <br />
With a still, mysterious stealth: <br />
She will mix these pleasures up <br />
Like three fit wines in a cup, <br />
And thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear <br />
Distant harvest-carols clear; <br />
Rustle of the reaped corn; <br />
Sweet birds antheming the morn: <br />
And, in the same moment, hark! <br />
'Tis the early April lark, <br />
Or the rooks, with busy caw, <br />
Foraging for sticks and straw. <br />
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold <br />
The daisy and the marigold; <br />
White-plum'd lillies, and the first <br />
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; <br />
Shaded hyacinth, alway <br />
Sapphire queen of the mid-May; <br />
And every leaf, and every flower <br />
Pearled with the self-same shower. <br />
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep <br />
Meagre from its celled sleep; <br />
And the snake all winter-thin <br />
Cast on sunny bank its skin; <br />
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see <br />
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, <br />
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest <br />
Quiet on her mossy nest; <br />
Then the hurry and alarm <br />
When the bee-hive casts its swarm; <br />
Acorns ripe down-pattering, <br />
While the autumn breezes sing. <br />
<br />
Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose; <br />
Every thing is spoilt by use: <br />
Where's the cheek that doth not fade, <br />
Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid <br />
Whose lip mature is ever new? <br />
Where's the eye, however blue, <br />
Doth not weary? Where's the face <br />
One would meet in every place? <br />
Where's the voice, however soft, <br />
One would hear so very oft? <br />
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth <br />
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. <br />
Let, then, winged Fancy find <br />
Thee a mistress to thy mind: <br />
Dulcet-ey'd as Ceres' daughter, <br />
Ere the God of Torment taught her <br />
How to frown and how to chide; <br />
With a waist and with a side <br />
White as Hebe's, when her zone <br />
Slipt its golden clasp, and down <br />
Fell her kirtle to her feet, <br />
While she held the goblet sweet <br />
And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh <br />
Of the Fancy's silken leash; <br />
Quickly break her prison-string <br />
And such joys as these she'll bring.-- <br />
Let the winged Fancy roam, <br />
Pleasure never is at home. <br />
<br />
<b>John Keats</b>QNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-41703509510701951702010-11-02T16:44:00.003-04:002010-11-02T16:52:58.136-04:00Tremendous Trifles(Enjoy this essay by G.K. Chesterton)<br />
<br />
Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly in the front garden, because their villa was a model one. The front garden was about the same size as the dinner table; it consisted of four strips of gravel, a square of turf with some mysterious pieces of cork standing up in the middle and one flower bed with a row of red daisies. One morning while they were at play in these romantic grounds, a passing individual, probably the milkman, leaned over the railing and engaged them in philosophical conversation. The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, were at least sharply interested in his remarks. For the milkman (who was, I need say, a fairy) did his duty in that state of life by offering them in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. And Paul closed with the offer with a business-like abruptness, explaining that he had long wished to be a giant that he might stride across continents and oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas in an afternoon dinner stroll. The milkman producing a wand from his breast pocket, waved it in a hurried and perfunctory manner; and in an instant the model villa with its front garden was like a tiny doll's house at Paul's colossal feet. He went striding away with his head above the clouds to visit Niagara and the Himalayas. But when he came to the Himalayas, he found they were quite small and silly-looking, like the little cork rockery in the garden; and when he found Niagara it was no bigger than the tap turned on in the bathroom. He wandered round the world for several minutes trying to find something really large and finding everything small, till in sheer boredom he lay down on four or five prairies and fell asleep. Unfortunately his head was just outside the hut of an intellectual backwoodsman who came out of it at that moment with an axe in one hand and a book of Neo-Catholic Philosophy in the other. The man looked at the book and then at the giant, and then at the book again. And in the book it said, "It can be maintained that the evil of pride consists in being out of proportion to the universe." So the backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, working eight hours a day for about a week, cut the giant's head off; and there was an end of him.<br />
<br />
Such is the severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly enough, made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long wished to be a pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he immediately became one. When the transformation was over he found himself in the midst of an immense plain, covered with a tall green jungle and above which, at intervals, rose strange trees each with a head like the sun in symbolic pictures, with gigantic rays of silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward the middle of this prairie stood up a mountain of such romantic and impossible shape, yet of such stony height and dominance, that it looked like some incident of the end of the world. And far away on the faint horizon he could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more mystical, of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. He set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has not come to the end of it yet.<br />
<br />
Such is the story of Peter and Paul, which contains all the highest qualities of a modern fairy tale, including that of being wholly unfit for children; and indeed the motive with which I have introduced it is not childish, but rather full of subtlety and reaction. It is in fact the almost desperate motive of excusing or palliating the pages that follow. Peter and Paul are the two primary influences upon European literature to-day; and I may be permitted to put my own preference in its most favourable shape, even if I can only do it by what little girls call telling a story.<br />
<br />
I need scarcely say that I am the pigmy. The only excuse for the scraps that follow is that they show what can be achieved with a commonplace existence and the sacred spectacles of exaggeration. The other great literary theory, that which is roughly represented in England by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, is that we moderns are to regain the primal zest by sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. Let it be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; and the two alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling's school advises us to go to Central Africa in order to find a man without a frock coat. The school to which I belong suggests that we should stare steadily at the man until we see the man inside the frock coat. If we stare at him long enough he may even be moved to take off his coat to us; and that is a far greater compliment than his taking off his hat. In other words, we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually before us, force them to turn into adventures; force them to give up their meaning and fulfil their mysterious purpose. The purpose of the Kipling literature is to show how many extraordinary things a man may see if he is active and strides from continent to continent like the giant in my tale. But the object of my school is to show how many extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man may see if he can spur himself to the single activity of seeing. For this purpose I have taken the laziest person of my acquaintance, that is myself; and made an idle diary of such odd things as I have fallen over by accident, in walking in a very limited area at a very indolent pace. If anyone says that these are very small affairs talked about in very big language, I can only gracefully compliment him upon seeing the joke. If anyone says that I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess with pride that it is so. I can imagine no more successful and productive form of manufacture than that of making mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a pigmy like Peter to discover that.<br />
<br />
I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, in getting to the top of everything and overlooking everything. Satan was the most celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took Jesus to the top of an exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. But the joy of Satan in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, but a joy in beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like insects at his feet. It is from the valley that things look large; it is from the level that things look high; I am a child of the level and have no need of that celebrated Alpine guide. I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help; but I will not lift up my carcass to the hills, unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything is in an attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. I will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.QNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-57678613155421181032010-09-04T12:05:00.000-04:002010-09-04T12:05:50.930-04:00On the importance of imaginationFrom Owen Barfield, <i>Poetic Diction</i>:<br />
<blockquote>Science deals with the world which it perceives, but seeking more and more to penetrate the veil of naive perception, progresses only towards the goal of nothing because it still does not accept in practice (whatever it may admit theoretically) that the mind first creates what it perceives as objects, including the instruments which Science uses for that vey penetration. It insists on dealing with 'data', but there shall no data be given, save the bare precept. The rest is imagination. Only by imagination therefore can the world be known. And what is needed is, not only that larger and larger telescopes and more and more sensitive calipers should be constructed, but that the human mind should become increasingly aware of its own creative activity.</blockquote>QNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-37096783451706270402010-08-30T22:34:00.000-04:002010-08-30T22:34:03.892-04:00Ulysses<div style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">It little profits that an idle king, <br />
By this still hearth, among these barren crags, <br />
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole <br />
Unequal laws unto a savage race, <br />
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. <br />
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink <br />
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd <br />
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those <br />
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when <br />
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades <br />
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name; <br />
For always roaming with a hungry heart <br />
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men <br />
And manners, climates, councils, governments, <br />
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,-- <br />
And drunk delight of battle with my peers, <br />
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. <br />
I am a part of all that I have met; <br />
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' <br />
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades <br />
For ever and for ever when I move. <br />
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, <br />
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! <br />
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life <br />
Were all too little, and of one to me <br />
Little remains; but every hour is saved <br />
>From that eternal silence, something more, <br />
A bringer of new things; and vile it were <br />
For some three suns to store and hoard myself, <br />
And this gray spirit yearning in desire <br />
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, <br />
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. <br />
This is my son, mine own Telemachus, <br />
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,-- <br />
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill <br />
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild <br />
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees <br />
Subdue them to the useful and the good. <br />
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere <br />
Of common duties, decent not to fail <br />
In offices of tenderness, and pay <br />
Meet adoration to my household gods, <br />
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. <br />
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; <br />
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, <br />
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,-- <br />
That ever with a frolic welcome took <br />
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed <br />
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old; <br />
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil. <br />
Death closes all; but something ere the end, <br />
Some work of noble note, may yet be done, <br />
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. <br />
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; <br />
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep <br />
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends. <br />
'T is not too late to seek a newer world. <br />
Push off, and sitting well in order smite <br />
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds <br />
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths <br />
Of all the western stars, until I die. <br />
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; <br />
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, <br />
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. <br />
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' <br />
We are not now that strength which in old days <br />
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,-- <br />
One equal temper of heroic hearts, <br />
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will <br />
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. <br />
<br />
<b>Alfred, Lord Tennyson</b> </span></div>QNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9349445.post-18204111080027651182010-08-08T15:05:00.000-04:002010-08-08T15:05:02.548-04:00Tabla RosaIn the beginning . . .QNormalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088526434729767007noreply@blogger.com1