Poem for Sunday

Sonnet LXXVII: Soul's Beauty
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Under the arch of Life, where love and death,
Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
I drew it in as simply as my breath.
Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,
The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw,
By sea or sky or woman, to one law,
The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise
Thy voice and hand shake still,—long known to thee
By flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beat
Following her daily of thy heart and feet,
How passionately and irretrievably,
In what fond flight, how many ways and days!

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A month away and I had forgotten how unbearably hot and muggy Washington can be in the summer...the 120 degrees without humidity of the southwest is easier to breathe, though I must admit that being here and seeing all the different shades of green in the woods, I missed the deciduous trees.

Yesterday in the warm but tolerable afternoon we went to see the hugely fun Pirates of the Caribbean and I need someone to explain to me, if Will's father knew to send him the cursed piece of Aztec gold that the pirates shouldn't have been stealing, how come he wasn't also cursed and therefore still alive where they marooned him at the bottom of the ocean and could in theory have been rescued before the curse was lifted? But it wins lots and lots of points for style and enthusiasm. (And the Hidalgo trailer was still attached! I'm such a sucker for movies where people talk to horses...plus, you know, Viggo.)

All four leads look like they are having the best time, there are lots of bits of imagery from the amusement park ride (which I've been on three times in two different Disney parks), the swordfighting and boat chases are beautifully done and the eye candy factor is, well, superb. I liked the women, which is unusual in historical action-adventure where usually there's some horrible stereotype or other being perpetrated, though of course no one had a living mother. Johnny Depp is so delightfully, shamelessly swishy! I'd slash Jack with Kevin Kline's Pirate King from The Pirates of Penzance if it weren't so utterly ridiculous on so many levels. As it is, I might have to write something about Jack and Anamaria teaching Will what women want.

Today the boys are clamoring to see Johnny English and since they hadn't seen a film in five weeks and it looks like rain, we may indulge them. I am sure Seabiscuit will still be around next weekend and it sounds like I can wait for T3 on DVD -- I don't want to watch the violence on the big screen anyway. Then I must get cracking on the book reviews I owe GMR before I check in with TT and say yeah, what have you got for me?


Pirate Ship and Settlement, Treasure Island, Las Vegas