Sunday, February 22, 2004

Of course, the real reason for not writing more than 500 words at a time is that I can't keep my mind on anything that long. Well, one thing, maybe. Speaking of which, here is Mr Shelley again:

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What is all this sweet work worth,
If thou kiss not me?


And then, (same topic, but moving in the opposite direction) I read "The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo" (Gerard Manley Hopkins) for the first time today, and I wish I had read it earlier, since it sums up everything of any value that I've learned in the past thirty years. But I suppose that only means that if I'd read it thirty years ago I would have smugly dismissed it.

It begins:

HOW to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, … from vanishing away?


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