of names, the day and poetry
My day was very good today. I really like my literature classes. There's one girl named Ligea and one named Lenore in the same class!!! But Ligea likes people to call her Lizzy instead, having such a wonderful name...
My psychology professor, when asking of us to present ourselves to the class, asked a few if they liked their name. She didn't ask me, though.
She said that liking one's name is very important... or at least liking the name we are called, not necessarily what our parents named us, because it helps mold and define our personality.
Kevin, my little brother,(not really, I just call him that) called me last night; we were talking about names... he said if he were named something other than Kevin, things might have been different. Said his mom wanted to name him Eric, and that if he would have been named Eric, he might not have turned out as he is now.
My mom only had one name for me if I were to be a girl. If I were to be a boy, she said she and my dad had quite a couple... but for a girl it would be Alejandra Reuhel. I really like my name, a lot.
Too bad Lizzy doesn't like her name, Ligea...
We read something by Don Marquis, (FATE IS UNFAIR - archy) I think I found new inspiration, he's amazing...
A NIGHTMARE
LEAGUES before me, leagues behind,
Clamor warring wastes of flood,
All the streams of all the worlds
Flung together, mad of mood;
Through the canon beats a sound,
Regular of interval,
Distant, drumming, muffled, dull,
Thunderously rhythmical;
Crafts slip by my startled soul--
Soul that cowers, a thing apart--
They are corpuscles of blood!
That's the throbbing of a heart!
God of terrors!--am I mad?--
Through my body, mine own soul,
Shrunken to an atom's size,
Voyages toward an unguessed goal!
"SO LET THEM PASS, THESE SONGS OF MINE"
So let them pass, these songs of mine,
Into oblivion, nor repine;
Abandoned ruins of large schemes,
Dimmed lights adrift from nobler dreams,
Weak wings I sped on quests divine,
So let them pass, these songs of mine.
They soar, or sink ephemeral--
I care not greatly which befall!
For if no song I e'er had wrought,
Still have I loved and laughed and fought;
So let them pass, these songs of mine;
I sting too hot with life to whine!
Still shall I struggle, fail, aspire,
Lose God, and find Gods in the mire,
And drink dream-deep life's heady wine--
So let them pass, these songs of mine.
ACROSS THE NIGHT
MUCH listening through the silences,
Much staring through the night,
And lo! the dumb blind distances
Are bridged with speech and sight!
Magician Thought, informed of Love,
Hath fixed her on the air--
Oh, Love and I laughed down the fates
And clasped her, here as there!
Across the eerie silences
She came in headlong flight,
She stormed the serried distances,
She trampled space and night!
Oh, foolish scientists might give
This miracle a name--
But Love and I care but to know
That when we called she came.
And since I find the distances
Subservient to my thought,
And of the sentient silences
More vital speech have wrought,
Then she and I will mock Death's self,
For all his vaunted might--
There are no gulfs we dare not leap,
As she leapt through the night!
THE NAME
IT shifts and shifts from form to form,
It drifts and darkles, gleams and glows;
It is the passion of the storm,
The poignance of the rose;
Through changing shapes, through devious
ways,
By noon or night, through cloud or flame,
My heart has followed all my days
Something I cannot name.
In sunlight on some woman's hair,
Or starlight in some woman's eyne,
Or in low laughter smothered where
Her red lips wedded mine,
My heart hath known, and thrilled to know,
This unnamed presence that it sought;
And when my heart hath found it so,
"Love is the name," I thought.
Sometimes when sudden afterglows
In futile glory storm the skies
Within their transient gold and rose
The secret stirs and dies;
Or when the trampling morn walks o'er
The troubled seas, with feet of flame,
My awed heart whispers, "Ask no more,
For Beauty is the name!"
Or dreaming in old chapels where
The dim aisles pulse with murmurings
That part are music, part are prayer--
(Or rush of hidden wings)
Sometimes I lift a startled head
To some saint's carven countenance,
Half fancying that the lips have said,
All names mean God, perchance!"
My psychology professor, when asking of us to present ourselves to the class, asked a few if they liked their name. She didn't ask me, though.
She said that liking one's name is very important... or at least liking the name we are called, not necessarily what our parents named us, because it helps mold and define our personality.
Kevin, my little brother,(not really, I just call him that) called me last night; we were talking about names... he said if he were named something other than Kevin, things might have been different. Said his mom wanted to name him Eric, and that if he would have been named Eric, he might not have turned out as he is now.
My mom only had one name for me if I were to be a girl. If I were to be a boy, she said she and my dad had quite a couple... but for a girl it would be Alejandra Reuhel. I really like my name, a lot.
Too bad Lizzy doesn't like her name, Ligea...
We read something by Don Marquis, (FATE IS UNFAIR - archy) I think I found new inspiration, he's amazing...
A NIGHTMARE
LEAGUES before me, leagues behind,
Clamor warring wastes of flood,
All the streams of all the worlds
Flung together, mad of mood;
Through the canon beats a sound,
Regular of interval,
Distant, drumming, muffled, dull,
Thunderously rhythmical;
Crafts slip by my startled soul--
Soul that cowers, a thing apart--
They are corpuscles of blood!
That's the throbbing of a heart!
God of terrors!--am I mad?--
Through my body, mine own soul,
Shrunken to an atom's size,
Voyages toward an unguessed goal!
"SO LET THEM PASS, THESE SONGS OF MINE"
So let them pass, these songs of mine,
Into oblivion, nor repine;
Abandoned ruins of large schemes,
Dimmed lights adrift from nobler dreams,
Weak wings I sped on quests divine,
So let them pass, these songs of mine.
They soar, or sink ephemeral--
I care not greatly which befall!
For if no song I e'er had wrought,
Still have I loved and laughed and fought;
So let them pass, these songs of mine;
I sting too hot with life to whine!
Still shall I struggle, fail, aspire,
Lose God, and find Gods in the mire,
And drink dream-deep life's heady wine--
So let them pass, these songs of mine.
ACROSS THE NIGHT
MUCH listening through the silences,
Much staring through the night,
And lo! the dumb blind distances
Are bridged with speech and sight!
Magician Thought, informed of Love,
Hath fixed her on the air--
Oh, Love and I laughed down the fates
And clasped her, here as there!
Across the eerie silences
She came in headlong flight,
She stormed the serried distances,
She trampled space and night!
Oh, foolish scientists might give
This miracle a name--
But Love and I care but to know
That when we called she came.
And since I find the distances
Subservient to my thought,
And of the sentient silences
More vital speech have wrought,
Then she and I will mock Death's self,
For all his vaunted might--
There are no gulfs we dare not leap,
As she leapt through the night!
THE NAME
IT shifts and shifts from form to form,
It drifts and darkles, gleams and glows;
It is the passion of the storm,
The poignance of the rose;
Through changing shapes, through devious
ways,
By noon or night, through cloud or flame,
My heart has followed all my days
Something I cannot name.
In sunlight on some woman's hair,
Or starlight in some woman's eyne,
Or in low laughter smothered where
Her red lips wedded mine,
My heart hath known, and thrilled to know,
This unnamed presence that it sought;
And when my heart hath found it so,
"Love is the name," I thought.
Sometimes when sudden afterglows
In futile glory storm the skies
Within their transient gold and rose
The secret stirs and dies;
Or when the trampling morn walks o'er
The troubled seas, with feet of flame,
My awed heart whispers, "Ask no more,
For Beauty is the name!"
Or dreaming in old chapels where
The dim aisles pulse with murmurings
That part are music, part are prayer--
(Or rush of hidden wings)
Sometimes I lift a startled head
To some saint's carven countenance,
Half fancying that the lips have said,
All names mean God, perchance!"