Sirin and Alkonost – Birds of Joy and Sorrow, by Viktor Vasnetsovi feel as though i am, now, like Sirin, the bird of sorrow on the left, and i was once, i think, like Alkonost, the bird of Joy on the right...and i miss being like her.
The Eye-Mote by Sylvia Plath
Blameless as daylight I stood looking
At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,
Tails streaming against the green
Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking
White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,
Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves
Steadily rooted though they were all flowing
Away to the left like reeds in a sea
When the splinter flew in and stuck my eye,
Needling it dark. Then I was seeing
A melding of shapes in a hot rain:
Horses warped on the altering green,
Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns,
Grazing at the margins of a bad monochrome,
Beasts of oasis, a better time.
Abrading my lid, the small grain burns:
Red cinder around which I myself,
Horses, planets and spires revolve.
Neither tears nor the easing flush
Of eyebaths can unseat the speck:
It sticks, and it has stuck a week.
I wear the present itch for flesh,
Blind to what will be and what was.
I dream that I am Oedipus.
What I want back is what I was
Before the bed, before the knife,
Before the brooch-pin and the salve
Fixed me in this parenthesis;
Horses fluent in the wind,
A place, a time gone out of mind.
painting, Andromeda (1869), by Paul Gustave Doré
portion of poem, Andromeda Unfettered by Muriel Stuart
I am a thing of twilight. I am afraid.
Dull now and tame now; of myself so shamed.
Fortressed against redemption; visited
Of the old dream so seldom, as things tamed
forget the life that their wild brother leads.
I am a hurt beast flinching at the light.
I have been palaced from sun, and night
Runs in my blood, and all night's blushless deeds!
Eve, by Anna Lea Merritt
A DAUGHTER OF EVE
by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.
Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:--
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.
OPHELIA: I hope all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him i' th' cold ground. My brother shall know of it; and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet ladies. Good night, good night. (Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5, line 2930)
A BETTER RESURRECTION
poem by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
I HAVE no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
The Descent of Christ by William Blake
from The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Florence and the Machine: Never Let Me Go
please note: any attempt to post comments/responses in way of unsolicited advice, analysis, words-of-wisdom, and/or correcting of my expressed opinions, thoughts or emotions on this blog, or worse-case-scenario: berating and condemning me, on Facebook, or via e-mail are not welcome and will be deleted before read. only positive comments or messages with uplifting, encouraging content, such as, "thank you for sharing" or "i will be praying" are welcome, as well as the ever-so-confirming "like" button on FB. thank you for being gracious. much love ~Heather
