Trí labra ata ferr túa...

I'm (re-)instituting the practice of writing for ten minutes at the beginning of every composition class this semester. Students can write about whatever they want, but for the inevitable "I don't know what to write about" whiners, I like to have a quote handy for a prompt.

So, fling your favorite quotes at me, folks! I'd like to get as wide a variety of viewpoints as possible.

Okay, so theferrett posted this on his LJ today:

Yesterday, my friends list was rife with tragedy: breakups, financial heartache, cybercrime, serious medical issues, dying relatives, serious differences in established relationships, fights with lovers, surgical complications, and of course the inevitable demon ponies.

This LJ needs a smudge ceremony. So come on in close, smell the sage, get a little ash on your face, and to help dispell the demons, post something awesome and wonderful about your life. I will use the little-known CSS property "border: 1px magic joyful" to set this HTML so that you may only discuss nice things. There will be no disclaimers about how you've lived underneath a sewer ever since you lost your job but yesterday you found a wet muckrag that might serve as a dress; no, for the smudge ceremony to work, you must only post a thing of purest joy.

So, it occurs to me that my own Friends List is experiencing its own troubles. So I'm doing it, too. I'll even go first. And it's not even Herself-related.

I am wearing purple argyle underwear. This puts an extra, silly spring in my step for some reason.

Who's next?

Happy Canada Day to all you lovely Canadian folks out there!



Photo yanked from toronoist.com.

It occurs to me to ask, since I'm realizing that I have a skewed view of religion. (Pause for the universal "Well, DUH.") For example, I thought everyone knew about Thomas Aquinas. Apparently not. So I'm posting this poll...

[Poll #1418777]

Of course, short of winning the lottery, there's no way a

£1,700.00 rug is making it into my house, but WOW.



Isn't it pretty? Based on the artwork from the Lindisfarne Gospels...

I'm going to finish out National Poetry Month, dammit, if it kills me. Hence the backdating.

I have a student making me crazed. Milton always makes me feel better when that happens.

"Light"
John Milton

HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born,
Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachèd light
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,
Escap't the Stygian Pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne
With other notes then to th' Orphean Lyre
I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that rowle in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs,
Or dim suffusion veild. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee Sion and the flowrie Brooks beneath
That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equal'd with me in Fate,
So were I equal'd with them in renown.
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old.
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntarie move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the chearful waies of men
Cut off, and for the Book of knowledge fair
Presented with a Universal blanc
Of Natures works to mee expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou Celestial light
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

"A Mien to move a Queen"
Emily Dickinson

A Mien to move a Queen—
Half Child—Half Heroine—
An Orleans in the Eye
That puts its manner by
For humbler Company
When none are near
Even a Tear—
Its frequent Visitor—

A Bonnet like a Duke—
And yet a Wren's Peruke
Were not so shy
Of Goer by—
And Hands—so slight—
They would elate a Sprite
With Merriment—

A Voice that Alters—Low
And on the Ear can go
Like Let of Snow—
Or shift supreme—
As tone of Realm
On Subjects Diadem—

Too small—to fear—
Too distant—to endear—
And so Men Compromise
And just—revere—

This is just completely awesome. I don't generally read a lot of SGA, but this fic was just the most fun to read: Woobie of Woe.

An excerpt:

"WE NEED MORE CHEERIOS"

Grodin watched Verdan's head drop to the console.

"Dear god above!" Her head popped back up to search out Grodin's eyes, "I don't suppose there's any way..." she began.

Grodin held up a hand to stop her, "I've tried shutting him out of the comm system. But he just gets back in."

"AND SOME JUICE...apple will do."

"Can't you just pipe him into the kitchen?" Verdan begged.

Grodin shrugged, "I tried that earlier. There's only Cohen left down there...."

"CHEERIOS"

"...And I suspect he's found a way to rip the speakers out of the wall."

"Maybe we could just assign someone to be his gofer?"

Grodin's eyebrows rose, "And who would you suggest for the job?"

"THEY'RE LITTLE ROUND FOODSTUFFS"

"Someone I hated."

"What I mean is," Grodin waved an arm to indicate the empty gate room, "there really isn't anyone to spare. We've shifted so many people to do clean-up on the planet we have no bodies left to step and fetch for him."

"HELLO?"

"I know. I know." Verdan heaved a giant sigh and let her eyes wander, "It's really too quiet around here right now. Unless you head towards the med area."

"It is getting a little crowded over there." He looked down at the pad in front of him, "We're going to have to start diverting of the jumpers to take some of these people to the mainland."

"THEY CONSIST MAINLY OF WHOLE GRAIN OAT FLOUR"

"Okay, that one was unnecessary," Verdan shouted at the disembodied voice.

"WE'RE ABOUT TO HAVE A SERIOUS CHEERIOS CRISIS HERE, PEOPLE"

Here's Monday's poem. It's a relatively anonymous medieval poem. (For that alone you must love medieval poetry, where relative anonymity is a possibility.) Here's what the translator and explicator, Brian Stone, says in his Medieval English Verse (Penguin 1964):

[The poem] is a full working of a favourite motif, the definition of love, and is interesting for the indication it gives of an early approximation to standard ballad metre.

Love is soft and love is sweet, and speaks in accents fair;
Love is mighty agony, and love is might care;
Love is utmost ecstasy and love is keen to dare;
Love is wretched misery; to live with, it's despair.

Love's a lottery, mars your luck or gives you pleasures gay;
Love is lecherous, love is loose, and likely to betray;
Love's a tyrant here on earth, not easy to gainsay;
Love throughout this land of ours sends faithful ones astray.

Love's a stern and valiant knight, strong astride a steed;
Love's a thing that pleasures every longing woman's need;
Love persists and keeps its heat like any glowing gleed;
Love puts girls in floods of tears, they rage and cry indeed.

Love maintains his bailiwick in every path and street;
Love can wet with tears the cheek of any maiden sweet;
Love by chance brings misery inflamed with fever heat;
Love is wise and love is wary, wants its way complete.

Love's the softest, sweetest thing that in the heart may sleep;
Love is craft, and for its woes is well equipped to weep;
Love is false and love is eager, forces folk to long;
Love is foolish, love is firm, and love is comfort strong:
Love's a marvel to the man who treats of it in song.

Love is weal and love is woe, in gladness can maintain us;
Love is life and love is death, and love can well sustain us.

If love had strength for suffering as first it has when keen,
Then love would be the worthiest thing the world had ever seen;
But this is what is sung of it, and so it's ever been:
'Love begins in mighty pain and ends in grief and spleen,
With noble lady, steady wife, with virgin or with queen!'