Thursday, February 16, 2012

Crossed Stars?

Watched the movie Bright Star the other night. Very well done. Made me look up a bit more on the history of Keats and Fanny.  Not surprised that she was blamed for his emotional state. Of course they imposed bleeding and starvation diets on tuberculosis patients too... ugh. Such a lovely romance and barbaric period of history. Don't let the quaint fool you. But the poetry is outstanding.



Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death. 



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