[Quiet Man Cometh]

Read the whole thing Sheol, Dammit! It's not like Promethus Unbound is all that big. :p. I like it, but dont' recall enough of it at the moment to quote anything off the top of my head. I do recall at the end my prof commenting that Shelley made a piss poor athiest, which he supposedly was. It's full of quite the imagery though. Thank goodness he was wealthy or that stuff probably wouldn't have been seen as fit or proper writing.

"There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold..."

Last night came the cartoon for Robert Services "Cremation of Sam Mcgee." It's a simple poem, but I like it and the narration is great. I'll see if I can find it on youtube somewhere.

"There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Ah, interior rhyming. Something I know better than to ever attempt. Always impressive to read, at least, when it works.

And, from Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books (one of the later ones):


My heart has rooms that sigh with dust
And ashes in the hearth.
They must be cleaned and blown away
By daylight's breath.
But I cannot essay the task,
For even dust to me is dear;
For dust and ashes still recall,
My love was here

I know not how to say Farewell,
When Farewell is the word
That stays alone for me to say
Or will be heard.
But I cannot speak out that word
Or ever let my loved one go
How can I bear it that these rooms
Are empty so?

"I sit among the dust and hope
That dust will cover me.
I stir the ashes in the hearth,
Though cold they be.
I cannot bear to close the door,
To seal my loneliness away
While dust and ashes yet remain
Of my love's day.

I seem to be attracted to the word "dust".

Oh, and I will read it, I just want to own it. I hate reading on my computer screen (which is at odds with how much time I spend in front of it, but there you have it.)

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Blah! I can't find the cartoon I want, go figure. There are piles of narrations of Sam Mcgee but they read it so much in that bland "poem" style. More fun when there's some emphasis and play with the words. The one I want was put out by the National Film Board of Canada, whihc is possibly why I can't find it online. The narrator is Max Ferguson and it's set to paintings by Ted Harrison.

[Gallowsraven]

A completely cheesy quote, but i just wanna say it :D

"To be, or not to be. That is the question."

Sorry guys, wouldn't leave my head unless i typed it out :D

[Suzerain of Sheol]

That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even death may die. --Lovecraft

[Gallowsraven]

Nice, i love that one.

"Six steeds of yellow hue
A hundred times better is
My cream-coloured steed,
Swift as the sea-mew
Which will not pass
Between the sea and the shore.
Am I not pre-eminent in the field of blood?"
~The Battle of the Trees, from The Book of Taliesin VIII

[Suzerain of Sheol]

A beggar's mistake harms no one but the beggar. A king's mistake, however, harms everyone but the king. Too often, the measure of power lies not in the number who obey your will, but in the number who suffer for your stupidity.

--Scott Bakker, the Judging Eye

His books have quotes like this at the beginning of every chapter, part of why I love them.

[Gallowsraven]

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
~ The Art of War

Not sure if this could count as literature but i like it.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I'd consider The Art of War literature.

And,

Stygian gramarye, etched with blasphemy,
Whorls and verticils, black with baleful spells,
Vespertine conjurings, doomsayer's prophecy,
Pellucid lotus-dreams, spawn of the elder fiends,
Cryptic halls, squamous mass, malevolent diabolist,
Black desire, nighted woe, shunned and forbidden tome,
Brooding dark, deepest night, ritual, abhorrent sight,
Whispering malignity, hearken to the summoning! -- Six Score and Ten Oblations to a Malefic Avatar, Byron Roberts

[Gallowsraven]

Thanks, i think so too :D

"BLASTED with sighs, and surrounded with tears,
Hither I come to seek the spring,
And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,
Receive such balms as else cure every thing.
But O ! self-traitor, I do bring
The spider Love, which transubstantiates all,
And can convert manna to gall ;
And that this place may thoroughly be thought
True paradise, I have the serpent brought."
~ Twickenham Garden, by John Donne

My favourite poem by this particular poet.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

"The spider Love, which transubstantiates all,
And can convert manna to gall" Love this line.

Another favorite poem of mine, only one I really like of Wordsworth:

A sluber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

[Gallowsraven]

I must be in a Donne mood :D this next one is actually the whole poem, it's one of the shorter ones he's written. Witchcraft by a Picture.

"I FIX mine eye on thine, and there
Pity my picture burning in thine eye ;
My picture drown'd in a transparent tear,
When I look lower I espy ;
Hadst thou the wicked skill
By pictures made and marr'd, to kill,
How many ways mightst thou perform thy will?

But now I've drunk thy sweet salt tears,
And though thou pour more, I'll depart ;
My picture vanished, vanish all fears
That I can be endamaged by that art ;
Though thou retain of me
One picture more, yet that will be,
Being in thine own heart, from all malice free."

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Quoting this from memory. Another Tolkien quote.

Come not between the Nazgul and his prey, else he shall slay thee not in thy turn. Nay, he shall bear thee away unto the Houses of Lamentation beyond all darkness, wherein thy flesh shall be devoured and thy shriveled mind left naked before the lidless eye. -- The Witch-King of Angmar

[Gallowsraven]

"GO and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind."
~ Song: Go and catch a falling star, John Donne

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Kallor said, ‘I walked this land when the T’lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones.
Do you grasp the meaning of this?’

‘Yes,’ said Caladan Brood, ‘you never learn.’

-- Memories of Ice, Steven Erikson

[Gallowsraven]

Wow, i love that last line :D so funny.

"BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?"
~ The Sun Rising, John Donne

I feel his pain every morning T T

And, from The Art of War; "Know thy enemy"