I'm BACK :D

My apologies, gentle reader, I have been without internet connection for a little over a month now. I decided against blogging via my cell phone since I probably couldn't figure out if I tried, and, even if I could, I wouldn't want to type anything on that little ol' screen! *Takes cake for longest run-on ever* I am afraid I have lost you all. However, hopefully, I can eke back a faithful following. Or at least one or two views every now and again.

Today, I will post something from Keats as an homage to my bestie, m (you know who you are!). Unfortunately, I will not be quoting it with a sultry voice a la Benedict Cumberbatch, but I do what I can.

John Keats was one of the foremost Romantic poets. During his life, however, he received little recognition for his work. He grew up in a very unstable home and, by the time he was fourteen, had lost both of his parents. He worked in medicine as a young man and, at the age of 20, obtained a position as a junior house surgeon at Guy's Hospital. His first surviving poem was written in 1814 when he was only 19 years old. In 1816, Keats decided he would devote his time to poetry rather than a career in apothecary for which he had received his license. He spent a good deal of time nursing his brother Tom who was dying of tuberculosis. Both of his brothers died penniless of the disease. Keats died on February 23, 1821 also of tuberculosis. (Sorry I cut his bio short, but I wanted to have room for the poem and also get to bed at a decent hour.)

Ode to a Nightengale

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?

P.S. It is so good to be back :D

Remember, remember the... sixth of November?

Well, I'm falling behind again. Usually this time of year, I feel so motivated. I want to take on the world. Then, the holidays come, and I spend a month and a half crying at every family event. I am the world's worst scrooge at the holidays! Birthdays, too. Well, mine anyway, I have no problem with other people's birthdays. Unfortunately, my birthday and the holidays walk hand-in-hand. This year, my birthday even falls on Thanksgiving. Double whammy! I shall learn to be grateful and thank God for all the foods that I have yet refuse to eat like turkey and ham (blech!). Wow, I think I have just gone through the how-to guide for making enemies and alienating people! On to something more uplifting than my poor attitude!

Edna St. Vincent Millay was raised by a progressive mother who asked the father to leave the family in 1899. She had two sisters. She and her sisters were raised with an appreciation of the arts, and it was at her mother's urging that she enter her poem Renascence into a contest that led to her first publication. Also, as a result of this, Millay gained instant acclaim and a scholarship to Vassar. There, she continued to write poetry, and, at the request of the Vassar drama department, she wrote her first verse play The Lamp and the Bell. She led a Bohemian lifestyle. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her fourth volume of poetry The Harp Weaver. While she did marry later in life, she and her husband maintained a sexually open relationship throughout their twenty-six year marriage. He died in 1949, and she followed in 1950. My favorite sonnet of hers is as follows:



What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain,
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.