SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

by: George Gordon (Lord) Byron (1788-1824)

HE walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

 

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impair'd the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist is unfortunate enough to have his mother expire while giving birth to him in a workhouse towards the middle of the nineteenth century. A ward of the Parish orphanage, he is transferred back to the workhouse when he is almost ten years old. After casting lots with the rest of the starving boys, Oliver is chosen to ask for more gruel. Desperate from hunger and reckless with misery, Oliver keeps his end of the deal and asks for more. Oliver is ejected from the workhouse by his 'kind' benefactors, taking up service as an undertaker's apprentice. Oliver resolves to run away after further cruel treatment, finding himself on the long and hard road to London. Oliver considers himself fluky to meet a stranger along the way, Jack Dawkins, who offers him food and a place to stay in London. Jack informs Oliver that he is better known as 'the Artful Dodger', a protégé of an elderly, Jewish gentleman known as Fagin. Oliver falls foul of the law when accompanying two of his new colleagues while they relieve a respectable, old gentleman of his handkerchief, realizing with horror that he has naively fallen in with a gang of pick-pockets. Deserted at high speed by the real culprits, then captured and assumed to be the thief, he is brought before the magistrate. The victim of the theft, a Mr. Brownlow, takes pity on Oliver and is not altogether sure that Oliver took his handkerchief in the first place. Unwilling to press charges, Mr. Brownlow eventually persuades the magistrate to release Oliver. The night spent in the cell and the trauma of the hearing prove too much for Oliver's frail constitution and he takes a fever. Oliver wakes up many days later to find himself in a comfortable bed, in the very comfortable residence of Mr. Brownlow at Penton Ville. Oliver's situation is clearly much improved, but the old Jew, Fagin, worried about information regarding the nature and whereabouts of his operation being relayed to the police, plots to steal Oliver away from his new home.

Source: http://www.shvoong.com/f/books/418163-oliver-twist/#ixzz1lk3rSgeb

«Elizabeth : La Belle Dame Sans Merci»

I.

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

II.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! 5
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

III.

I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew, 10
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

IV.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light, 15
And her eyes were wild.

V.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan. 20

VI.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

VII.

She found me roots of relish sweet, 25
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”

VIII.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore, 30
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

IX.

And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d 35
On the cold hill’s side.

X.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!” 40

XI.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

XII.

And this is why I sojourn here, 45
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Ariel

imagem: http://minhavidadecinefilo2.zip.net/arch2007-11-11_2007-11-17.html

Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.


God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees!--The furrow


Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,


Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks----


Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else


Hauls me through air----
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.


White
Godiva, I unpeel----
Dead hands, dead stringencies.


And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child's cry


Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,


The dew that flies,
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red


Eye, the cauldron of morning.

I got you under my skin...

Photo by Pavlik
Photo taken: Saratov area, Russia, May, 2004

'Ode to a Nightingale' John Keats

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, -
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?

Good question: do I wake or sleep?

New Year’s Reflections

Sol Interno_ M. G.

_

Looking back on the months gone by,
As a new year starts and an old one ends,
We contemplate what brought us joy,
And we think of our loved ones and our friends.
Recalling all the happy times,
Remembering how they enriched our lives,
We reflect upon who really counts,
As the fresh and bright new year arrives.
And when I/we ponder those who do,
I immediately think of you.

Thanks for being one of the reasons I'll have a Happy New Year!
"By Joanna Fuchs"

Thank you C. L.

«On leaving some Friends at an Early Hour»

Fotografia: Utopia Antípoda Marcos Sobral

GIVE me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heap’d up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half discovered wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres:
For what a height my spirit is contending!
’Tis not content so soon to be alone.