Rose Lerner's Blog, page 43

1. I have a guest post up over at Danielle Monsch's blog! In it I talk about follies:
"A particular type of folly became popular in England in the 18th and 19th centuries: small buildings on an estate in an attempt to mimic a style of architecture that was currently trendy, but not actually [...:]

I read this first as a chapter epigraph in Gaudy Night. It's great, isn't it?
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from "The Second Brother: an Unfinished Drama"
by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
…Love? Do I love? I walk
Within the brilliance of another's thought,
As in a glory. I was dark before,
As Venus' chapel in the black of night:
But there was something holy in the [...:]

Hey all! I've got a new contest going on at my site. Basically, I'm going to write a short story set in the In for a Penny world, and I'm taking reader suggestions as to what it should be about! Want to see what would happen if aliens attacked Loweston? Want [...:]

This is one of those poems you see so often it feels like cheating to post it, but I love it so much I don't care. A word of geeky explanation (I was so excited when I learned this in history class and was able to connect it back to the poem!): the metaphors [...:]

Resignation
by Nikki Giovanni
I love you
because the Earth turns round the sun
because the North wind blows north
sometimes
because the Pope is Catholic
and most Rabbis Jewish
because winters flow into spring
and the air clears after a storm
because only my love for you
despite the charms of gravity
keeps me from falling off the Earth
into another dimension
I love you
because it is the [...:]

This Living Hand
by John Keats
This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm'd—see here it [...:]

I love the combination of cynicism and sincere passion in this one. Compare "Love is not all: it is not meat or drink" by the same author, brought to my attention by alert reader Cecilia Grant.
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We Talk of Taxes, and I Call You Friend
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
We talk of taxes, and I call [...:]

I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ
by Walt Whitman
I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday morn I pass'd the church,
Winds of autumn, as I walk'd the woods at dusk I heard your long-stretch'd sighs up above so mournful,
I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard the [...:]

The first time I read the Song of Solomon, when I was about 14, I thought it was weird. But later it grew on me, and now I think it's one of the sexiest poems out there. I know in some Christian traditions it's believed to be an allegory of Christ's love for [...:]

A tragic one today, from "In Memoriam A.H.H." by Tennyson. The whole poem is one of the saddest, most beautiful things I've ever read–if you're interested, you can find the rest of it here.
VII.
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, [...:]