2007-10-02

all that jazz

Anyone else notice I beat a personal best for site updates last month? Seventeen blog entries, people -- I'm sure you noticed, since I am updating the blog for my public.

Oh, the glory.

Anyway, I'm off to visit family and friends out east this weekend, in celebration of Thanksgiving, yadda yadda yadda. (Bagels. Must buy bagels. Also, must stop at Sugar Mountain, more than once.) SO I will not be blogging for a while.

In the meantime, I offer you poetry. Because autumn, my friends, is for poetry if nothing else.





That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
-- Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXIII
(Why, you ask, is fall for poetry? Because fall reminds me of school, and school reminds me of poetry, in a roundabout way. School also reminds me of math, but no one really wants to read about that.)

Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,
And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,
And burning blushes, though for no transgression,
Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left,
All these are little preludes to possession,
Of which young Passion cannot be bereft,
And merely tend to show how greatly Love is
Embarrassed at first starting with a novice.
-- Part LXXIV from Byron's Don Juan

(What am I reading these days, you ask? Yeah, about that. My attention span is really bad lately. So I'm half-reading Blindness, still. But it's not the kind of book you can put down at a page break because, well, there aren't any. There are chapters, but no paragraphs really. So it's just a dense book one isn't always in the mood for. I plan to take it with me on the road, especially since I don't have an iPod at the moment, so this will keep me busy. I'm also half-reading a collection of short stories by Jennifer Weiner. No point in me telling you about it, since it's really rather like everything else she writes. Kind of like chicken noodle soup for the brain. I don't mean that to sound as insulting as it probably does.)

He showed me Hights I never saw --
"Would'st Climb"--He said?
I said, "Not so."
"With me"--He said--"With me?"
He showed me secrets--Morning's nest--
The Rope the Nights were put across--
"And now, Would'st have me for a Guest?"
I could not find my "Yes"--
And then-He brake His Life,
And lo,
A light for me, did solemn grow--
The steadier, as my face withdrew-
And could I further "no"?
-- Emily Dickinson's [446] -- I like to think it's about pregnancy or illicit love, but let's be honest. It's probably about God.

This is not a poem at all, but something I've had ear-marked forever:
.... as there is private property and while money is the standard of all things, I do not think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily: not justly, because the best things will fall to the worst men; nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few. Even these few are not really well off, while the rest are utterly miserable.
-- Sir Thomas More's Utopia, Book One

And, finally, my favourite poem. This is actually, I suppose, a strange favourite for a modern woman. Written in 1650, there is a soppiness to it. But, to me, it speaks of choice.

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor aught but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
-- To My Dear and Loving Husband, by Anne Bradstreet

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