Footnotes: October 2017

 

Footnotes is a monthly link-up hosted by Ashley and Emily. It's all about sharing quotations. Just in time, I'm joining up with the October prompt, which is: a quotation from a poem.

 

There were quite a few quotations I could have shared this month, but I've chosen a short quote from Charlotte Bronte's poem "Gilbert":

            For words oft give but echo faint

            Of thoughts the mind conceives.

 

I've definitely experienced thoughts and feelings that I wasn't able to express in words; sometimes this might be because I don't have the words or don't understand my thoughts well enough, but other times it does seem like language is inadequate. However, one of the joys of collecting quotations is that sometimes you find that others have said things that express your thoughts perfectly, when you weren't able to do so yourself.

Weekly Poem: Psalm 13 by Mary Herbert

How long, O Lord, shall I forgotten be?

What? ever?

How long wilt thou thy hidden face from me

Dissever?

How long shall I consult with carefull sprite

In anguish?

How long shall I with foes triumphant might

Thus languish?

Behold me, Lord, let to thy hearing creep

My crying;

Nay, give me eyes and light, lest that I sleep

In dying;

Lest my foe brag, that in my ruin he

Prevailed;

And at my fall they joy that, troublous, me

Assailed.

No! no! I trust on thee, and joy in thy

Great pity:

Still, therefore, of thy graces shall be my

Song's ditty.

 

Mary Herbert

Weekly Poem: She walks in beauty, like the night



photo from Unsplash

She walks in beauty, like the night

   Of cloudless climes and starry skies,

And all that's best of dark and bright

   Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

   Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

   Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

   Or softly lightened o'er her face,

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

   How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

   So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

   But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

   A heart where love is innocent.

Lord Byron

Weekly Poem: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

So, I was thinking a while back that it might be nice to share some of my favourite poems on here, and decided to try doing a weekly post. Despite getting a few posts together I didn't get round to actually posting anything, but I found this in my drafts recently and thought I might as well give it a go. How long I will keep it up I cannot say, but I have a few poems lined up for the coming weeks at least.

This was originally meant to be posted back in February, and I chose the poem in honour of Valentine's day and of I Love Austen Week (since the poem is quoted in the 1995 version of Sense & Sensibility and always makes me think of Marianne & Willoughby). It doesn't really fit quite so well now, but I've decided to share it anyway.

 

image by Christian Hebell // Creative Commons Zero

 Sonnet 116
 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

    Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

    Or bends with the remover to remove.

O, no! It is an ever-fixèd mark,

    That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

    Whose worth's unknown, although his heart be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

    Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

    But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

        If this be error, and upon me proved,

        I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

William Shakespeare

Happy Birthday, Emily Brontë!



Emily Brontë, circa 1833

Today marks what would be the 198th birthday of Emily Brontë, She is of course most famous as the author of Wuthering Heights, which I've yet to read, but I have read and enjoyed several of her poems, so I decided that today would be a good day to share one of them:

            No coward soul is mine

            No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere

            I see Heaven's glories shine

            And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

            O God within my breast

            Almighty ever-present Deity

            Life, that in me hast rest,

            As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

            Vain are the thousand creeds

            That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,

            Worthless as withered weeds

            Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

            To waken doubt in one

            Holding so fast by thy infinity,

            So surely anchored on

            The steadfast rock of Immortality.

            With wide-embracing love

            Thy spirit animates eternal years

            Pervades and broods above,

            Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

            Though earth and moon were gone

            And suns and universes ceased to be

            And Thou wert left alone

            Every Existence would exist in thee

            There is not room for Death

            Nor atom that his might could render void

            Since thou art Being and Breath

            And what thou art may never be destroyed.