When the dark wood fell before me
And all the paths were overgrown
When the priests of pride say there is no other way
I tilled the sorrows of stone
I did not believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Then the mountain rose before me
By the deep well of desire
From the fountain of forgiveness
Beyond the ice and the fire
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars
Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me...
Wednesday 26 December 2007
Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennitt
Monday 24 December 2007
In The Bleak Midwinter
"In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago...
What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him —
Give my heart."
Christina Rossetti
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago...
What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him —
Give my heart."
Christina Rossetti
Mona Lisa Smile
I watched the film Mona Lisa Smile for the second time the other day. I like it much better the second time around. Sort of a girl's Dead Poets Society. However, there is the usual sexual immorality in it. It is interesting in that it deals with the tension of priorities in a woman's life, though no where near as well as Dorothy Sayers does in Gaudy Night. The best part is where Julia Stiles' character says to her teacher that you can be intelligent and married and have a family. It's a very good couple of lines. And I think it does portray pretty well the unhappiness of those whose joy is found in a husband alone and those whose joy is found in a career alone. Without Christ, both of these are dead end roads. But it ends with an incredibly stupid quote: "Not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image." I like the bit about non-aimeless wandering - shades of Tolkien's "not all those who wander are lost"; and yes, truth beyond tradition, beyond the image is something we should be seeking, but truth beyond DEFINITION. Gotta love Hollywood post-modernism. How can you have a definition-less truth - it ceases to be truth. It becomes whatever you want it to be. But irritating closing lines aside, if you can get past the sexual immorality, it's an interesting and thought provoking film.
The Uncommon Reader
I just bought The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett as a Christmas gift for someone. Of course I had to read it first! It's pretty clever. Bad points: one of the lead characters is a homosexual and portrayed as the only intelligent and sympathetic person in the royal entourage - as always it's frustrating to see a sinful lifestyle portrayed as good; second bad point - a few cases of unnecessary crude language; thirdly, I think it rather underestimates the Queen and her intelligence - of course it is fiction. Good points: it makes you look at the Queen as a real person, and there are several rather witty parts. Also, it inspires you to get reading - it reminds you of the sheer joy of being lost in a book. I enjoyed it...if you read it, let me know what you thought.
White Christmas - (Finale)
And one of the other more famous parts...it's a great film - old Bing sings well, Danny Kaye is genius, and George Clooney's grandmother isn't bad either.
Bing Crosby - Count Your Blessings Instead Of Sheep
One of the many reasons to watch White Christmas - a definite classic.
Friday 14 December 2007
John Donne
Why am I up at 20 to midnight posting about John Donne, when I have to get up at 4am to take someone to the airport tomorrow? Clearly I've lost my mind. Nonetheless, those of you who know me and know my particular brand of OCDness or general peculiarity know that I'm reading through my books alphabetically by the author's last name. I know, I know...but I would never have read Dickens, otherwise, and I would have missed out.
So, I'm reading the Mr. Donne's poems - I knew I would like them before I started since LPW quotes them so often, but they are really good in and of themselves. Hard to unravel - at least for those of us who didn't do English Lit at University, but very enjoyable. I recommend them.
Not being a postmodernist, I'm interested in the worldview behind what's written (in other words, "what it means to me" or "how it makes me feel" is irrelevant. I want to know how the author feels and what he means by it. He is the creator of it after all - he should be the one to ascribe meaning to it. But then, that's the problem with a non-Christian worldview - the Creator rarely gets His due.) Anyhoo, to find out what the author is getting at is often greatly helped, I think, by knowing a bit of their personal history (or maybe this is just my love for History coming out.) Though often a person contradicts in their writing and creating what they say they believe and in reverse have a hard time believing or living by what they write and create.
Anyways, getting back to Donne...he was raised a womanising Catholic, lived a pretty immoral life, wrote good stuff, said the right political things at the right time in an effort to make it easier for Catholics to cope with the new Anglican church, was doing pretty well in life, fell in love with one of the many girls, married her secretly, and was thrown in prison by her father and lost his job and a promising future. Wrote some more good stuff, stayed faithful to his wife, was broken-hearted by her death, became more Anglican, was pushed into the ministry, and became one of the most prominent preachers in the land. It seems like the critics all agree that it's impossible to completely accurately work out what poems go with what time in his life. They also all agree that there does seem to be 3 distinct types - womanising, lusty poetry; tender, loving poetry; and "religious" poetry. What they don't seem to see eye to eye on (surprise, surprise) is what was going on in his head. Some seem to imply that he was a Catholic who knew how to survive in an Anglican world. Others that he appreciated the Anglican compromise. People seem to agree that there was a change in his life, but some think it was a change for the worse. Some Christians believe it was a conversion. Others believe it was an acceptance of compromise. And others the tragic downfall of a man who could've been truly great. And then there are the romantics - those who believe that "true love" transformed him from a waster to a great and good man. I don't know. Was he merely a good politician, was it all just romantic love, or could it have been something more - something deeper that transformed a man who slept around into a faithful husband and father, that took a man obviously self-centred and transformed him into someone who wrote, "no man is an island, etc.", that shifted a focus from pleasure to love to God in his poems...I really don't know - maybe after I read the religious poems I'll know more. And if anyone out there has a good bio of Donne, let me know, please.
For now, I'll leave you with some lines from one of my favourites, A Valediction:forbidding mourning":
"If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the'other doe.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it,
And growes erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely runne;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begunne."
So, I'm reading the Mr. Donne's poems - I knew I would like them before I started since LPW quotes them so often, but they are really good in and of themselves. Hard to unravel - at least for those of us who didn't do English Lit at University, but very enjoyable. I recommend them.
Not being a postmodernist, I'm interested in the worldview behind what's written (in other words, "what it means to me" or "how it makes me feel" is irrelevant. I want to know how the author feels and what he means by it. He is the creator of it after all - he should be the one to ascribe meaning to it. But then, that's the problem with a non-Christian worldview - the Creator rarely gets His due.) Anyhoo, to find out what the author is getting at is often greatly helped, I think, by knowing a bit of their personal history (or maybe this is just my love for History coming out.) Though often a person contradicts in their writing and creating what they say they believe and in reverse have a hard time believing or living by what they write and create.
Anyways, getting back to Donne...he was raised a womanising Catholic, lived a pretty immoral life, wrote good stuff, said the right political things at the right time in an effort to make it easier for Catholics to cope with the new Anglican church, was doing pretty well in life, fell in love with one of the many girls, married her secretly, and was thrown in prison by her father and lost his job and a promising future. Wrote some more good stuff, stayed faithful to his wife, was broken-hearted by her death, became more Anglican, was pushed into the ministry, and became one of the most prominent preachers in the land. It seems like the critics all agree that it's impossible to completely accurately work out what poems go with what time in his life. They also all agree that there does seem to be 3 distinct types - womanising, lusty poetry; tender, loving poetry; and "religious" poetry. What they don't seem to see eye to eye on (surprise, surprise) is what was going on in his head. Some seem to imply that he was a Catholic who knew how to survive in an Anglican world. Others that he appreciated the Anglican compromise. People seem to agree that there was a change in his life, but some think it was a change for the worse. Some Christians believe it was a conversion. Others believe it was an acceptance of compromise. And others the tragic downfall of a man who could've been truly great. And then there are the romantics - those who believe that "true love" transformed him from a waster to a great and good man. I don't know. Was he merely a good politician, was it all just romantic love, or could it have been something more - something deeper that transformed a man who slept around into a faithful husband and father, that took a man obviously self-centred and transformed him into someone who wrote, "no man is an island, etc.", that shifted a focus from pleasure to love to God in his poems...I really don't know - maybe after I read the religious poems I'll know more. And if anyone out there has a good bio of Donne, let me know, please.
For now, I'll leave you with some lines from one of my favourites, A Valediction:forbidding mourning":
"If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the'other doe.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it,
And growes erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely runne;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begunne."
Tuesday 11 December 2007
Nessun Dorma
Italian Text
Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o, Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza,
guardi le stelle
che tremano d'amore
e di speranza.
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun saprà!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò
quando la luce splenderà!
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
che ti fa mia!
(Il nome suo nessun saprà!...
e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!)
Dilegua, o notte!
Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle!
All'alba vincerò!
vincerò, vincerò!
English Translation of "Nessun Dorma"
Nobody shall sleep!...
Nobody shall sleep!
Even you, o Princess,
in your cold room,
watch the stars,
that tremble with love and with hope.
But my secret is hidden within me,
my name no one shall know...
No!...No!...
On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines.
And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!...
(No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.)
Vanish, o night!
Set, stars! Set, stars!
At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!
Monday 10 December 2007
Bono on death
Was listening to songs from All That You Can't Leave Behind on Saturday evening as I drove home from Edinburgh in the snow, and even though I've heard them a lot of times, I suddenly thought of them in the context of death and eternity - no idea if that's what Bono had in mind - but interesting all the same.
I remember reading that he wrote Walk On about some Chinese human rights activist who was in prison - but still ...
"The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind...
...What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it...
...You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen...
...Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home...
...Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme..."
I especially like that "place that has to be believed to be seen" line.
Then in Kite, we have
"I don't know which way the wind will blow
Who's to know when the time has come around
Don't wanna see you cry
I know that this is not goodbye"
"For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out."
1 Timothy 6:7
"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living."
Psalm 27:13
"He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
John 3:36
"But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus."
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14
Friday 7 December 2007
Balliol portrait of Lord Peter Wimsey
I'm not sure I like this - there's no slanted smile. But the hooded eyes and beaky nose are about right. Surely, the monocle is a little large though...
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