School started today, and my fears of being bored were quickly allayed by a class I had planned to take just for fun. Then again, I'm sort of bipolar in how I feel the first week of classes: I'm either worried that I'm not doing enough, or overwhelmed with all that I think I have to do. What a fickle conundrum.
Here's a good poem that all of you should read. Right now.
The Broken Heart
by John Donne
by John Donne
He is stark mad, whoever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
I saw a flash of powder burn a day?
Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love's hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us love draws;
He swallows us and never chaws;
By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.
If 'twere not so, what did become
Of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
But from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me ; but Love, alas!
At one first blow did shiver it as glass.
Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more.
5 comments:
I like the poem. What made you think to include it? (It really doesn't seem related to anything else in the post....)
To be fickle is merely to be human :-)
My favorite part of the poem is that last stanza. Mmmm. Such imagery! You are fickle, my friend, but then, so am I. We keep each other in check.
I guess the seemingly unrelated poem is just evidence of my fickleness... actually, that's probably just pure randomness. :) I liked it, so I wanted to include it.
Wait, Josh! You're always so good at interpreting my posts and finding cool meanings (like the left and right thing...), so what did you think it meant? :) I'd love to know.
Here is the interpretation (makes me feel like Daniel or Joseph!): you cold-shouldered some guy who was madly in love with you, only to wake up the next day with the realization that he was the man of your dreams. However, you only realize this at a subconscious level; because of the traumas incident to the life of any lovely 21-year-old woman, you convince your conscious self that you quite simply cannot return his affections, for time has not yet healed all wounds. Due to this conscious-subconscious dissonance, you write this blog post, including a poem about broken hearts because your own broken heart was a key part of the trauma at issue. And here you are! All the while, as an act of psychic vengeance, the lover scorned memorizes Coleridge's "On a Discovery Made Too Late" and recites it to himself before falling to tearful sleep each night.
Ta da! I hope you like it :-)
[By the way, I think that "ta da" is an ideophone. I just learned about ideophones, and I think they're cool.]
Post a Comment