(no subject)

[pipistrellafelix]

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon --- his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay


I miss poetry. We're about to start reading Paradise Lost, & we're doing As You Like It & I still miss poetry (in my defense, AYLI is nearly entirely prose). I think what I miss is delving into beautiful language, savouring the way it tastes, & then drawing out fabulously deep, often pretentious, & sometimes useless interpretations. No time for that; I need to read more history...

Comments

PS

[countcomfect.livejournal.com]

Putting Kaos into fourteen lines
A silly old conviction, I might say;
As well to publish in the New York Times
The pastures on which English heifers graze:
For he is jealous where he may be put
Unwilling or unknowing he’ll despise
To be enforced into a bounded rut
When he, alone, through aerie space can fly.
Thus he mocks the endless tramp of verse
Rocking back and forth and to and fro;
Turning what seemed better into worse
With one substantial, giantlike bellow.
He mocks your rhymes – he turns your good aside
For Kaos, ever present will not be denied.

Re: PS

[elanor-two.livejournal.com]

...and you just wrote two sonnets in lj comments. Wow.

& I am actually very excited for Paradise Lost's poetry...I remember liking it a lot.