to speak a few reasonable words

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."

[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]

the overflow of joy

"Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others."  

[John Piper, Desiring God]

making mud pies in a slum

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and to earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I suggest that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

 [C.S. Lewis in a 1941 sermon]

when i think i might fall apart

But Frank put it best when he said,

"You can't plan on the heart"

Those words keep me on my feet

when I think I might just fall apart

Oh, there's nothing more to it
I just get through it

[First Aid Kit, "To a Poet"]

gifted or insane

"Hence, the poetic art belongs either to a naturally gifted person or an insane one..."

[Aristotle, Poetics, Chapter 17, Section 1455a]

some infinitely gentle infinitely suffering thing

"I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing."

[T.S. Eliot, "Preludes IV"]

it's a question of making your fortune in this world, or in the next

"If you dream of paying court to men of power, your eternal damnation is guaranteed. You could make a fortune, but you'd have to tread on the poor, flatter the deputy governor of the district, and the mayor, and all other men of substance, and assist them in their passions. For a layman, such conduct, which the world calls knowing how to live, is not incompatible with salvation. But with the likes of us, a choice has to be made: it's a question of making your fortune in this world, or in the next. There's no middle ground."

[Father Chélan in The Red and the Black]

you yourself

"It is a painful thing
to look at your own trouble and known
that you yourself and no one else has made it."

[Tecmessa in Sophocles' Ajax]

love endures all things

you can never please a false god

"You can never please a false god."

[Timothy Keller from "The Church Before the Watching World" sermon]

and that's a bad thing?

"'Really,' [Father Pirard] thought, 'here is exactly that fatal tendency to Protestantism, for which I've always scolded Chélan: deep, deep knowledge --almost too deep -- of the Scriptures.'"

[from Stendhal's The Red and the Black]

boredom grows and grows

"Boredom grows and grows. The only pleasures left are reading and farming."

[Stendhal, The Red and the Black]

prone to wander, Lord, I feel it

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.
Prone to leave the God I love."

[Robert Robinson, "Come Thou Fount"]

which one among our men are fakes?

"O Zeus, you've given us the clear criteria to test
if gold is counterfeit: so why is there no stamp of guarantee
marked on the human body to discriminate which ones
among our men are fakes?"

[Medea in Euripides' Medea]

the turbid ebb and flow of human misery

In tutorial class today we spent about an hour discussing this poem, dissecting it. I fell in 

love with it.

Now, back to Stendhal and a margarita.

--

"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

rather in things done

"It is not in words
that I should wish my life to be distinguished,
but rather in things done." 

[Theseus to Oedipus in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus]

no old age for a man's anger

"There is no old age for a man's anger."

[Creon to Oedipus in Sophocles' Oedipus in Colonus]

sing, o barren one, who did not bear

"Sing, O barren one, who did not bear;
break forth into singing and cry aloud,
you who have not been in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than the children of her who is married," says the LORD...
Fear not, for you will not be ashamed;
be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced;
for you will forget the shame of your youth,
and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
For your Maker is your husband,
the LORD of hosts is his name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
The God of the whole earth he is called.
For the LORD has called you
like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit,
like a wife of youth when she is cast off,
says your God.
For a brief moment I deserted you,
but with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing anger for a moment
I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,"
says the LORD, your Redeemer. 

[from Isaiah 54]

arctic swell

I shall have to try this in August. I jokes...

i rest my weary soul in Thee

O Love that will not let me go

I rest my weary soul in Thee;

I give Thee back the life I owe,

That in Thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.