Poem for Friday and <a href

Sonnets from the Portuguese 26: I Lived with Visions
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I lived with visions for my company,
Instead of men and women, years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world's dust, -- their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come ... to be,
Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,
As river-water hallowed into fonts)
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of all wants --
Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

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Friday Five:

1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have?
Visit Jerusalem.

2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?
This is going to sound like a cop-out but I usually HAVE no opinion on haircuts, outfits, etc. Unless something is stunningly beautiful or stunningly awful, it rarely makes any impact on me whatsoever. And if the question is whether it's fashionable...like I would know!

3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened?
A couple of times I've learned that friends lied to me about things, where I gather they lied because they thought I would judge them badly if I knew the truth, but I actually was much more troubled by the lying than I would have been by what they were trying to hide from me. And in one case I learned that someone was involved in something that just freaked me out -- I thought it was dangerous to her and to others -- but since it wasn't illegal there wasn't anything I could really do about it, other than let her know how upsetting I found it.

4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?
I have yet to find a fictional world for which I'd leave this one. I used to want to live in Star Trek's future, but not as a member of a Starfleet crew -- I just wanted to live in a universe with that much exploration and cultural exchange going on.

5. What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted?
A really great singing voice.


Quick reccage: 's "Five Minutes To Midnight" -- very short sweet sexy Clex. Takes less than five minutes to read and left me with a big grin.

NYTimes on John Ashcroft, Gay Pride and Prejudice. What they said.

From Top5, The Top 10 Reasons the Klingon Language Is Better Than French.