Poem for Friday

Broken Love
By William Blake

MY Spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way;
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.

‘A fathomless and boundless deep,
There we wander, there we weep;
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind.

‘He scents thy footsteps in the snow
Wheresoever thou dost go,
Thro’ the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?

’Dost thou not in pride and scorn
Fill with tempests all my morn,
And with jealousies and fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears?

‘Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereavèd of their life.
Their marble tombs I built with tears,
And with cold and shuddering fears.

‘Seven more loves weep night and day
Round the tombs where my loves lay,
And seven more loves attend each night
Around my couch with torches bright.

‘And seven more loves in my bed
Crown with wine my mournful head,
Pitying and forgiving all
Thy transgressions great and small.

‘When wilt thou return and view
My loves, and them to life renew?
When wilt thou return and live?
When wilt thou pity as I forgive?’

‘O’er my sins thou sit and moan:
Hast thou no sins of thy own?
O’er my sins thou sit and weep,
And lull thy own sins fast asleep.

‘What transgressions I commit
Are for thy transgressions fit.
They thy harlots, thou their slave;
And my bed becomes their grave.

‘Never, never, I return:
Still for victory I burn.
Living, thee alone I’ll have;
And when dead I’ll be thy grave.

‘Thro’ the Heaven and Earth and Hell
Thou shalt never, quell:
I will fly and thou pursue:
Night and morn the flight renew.’

‘Poor, pale, pitiable form
That I follow in a storm;
Iron tears and groans of lead
Bind around my aching head.

‘Till I turn from Female love
And root up the Infernal Grove,
I shall never worthy be
To step into Eternity.

‘And, to end thy cruel mocks,
Annihilate thee on the rocks,
And another form create
To be subservient to my fate.

‘Let us agree to give up love,
And root up the Infernal Grove;
Then shall we return and see
The worlds of happy Eternity.

‘And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As our dear Redeemer said:
“This the Wine, and this the Bread.”’

--------

The poem's a souvenir of having watched The Heart of Me last night. I was much angrier at all the characters this time around, since I knew where it was going, like watching a train wreck on the news after you know human error was the cause. How long can you feel sorry for society's privileged when they can't get their psychological crap together? Still, they're nicely complicated and I believed in all of them, which doesn't always happen in period dramas.

The Friday Five has announced that it is shutting down. Which is rather a shame, but the questions haven't been all that profound in awhile and the person who runs it is bored, so it's time.

: Guilty Pleasures 5
1. What is (one of) your guilty pleasure episode(s)?
All the bad original Trek episodes with slashy subtext -- "Turnabout Intruder", "Spock's Brain", even "And the Children Shall Lead."
2. What is (one of) your guilty pleasure movie(s)?
Joe vs. the Volcano. I don't really like Meg Ryan. I am not particularly a fan of Tom Hanks. Everything about this film is frivolous and parts of it are really bad. I adore it anyway, and worse, find it uplifting.
3. What is (one of) your guilty pleasure website(s)?
Any web site devoted to an actor that I don't have to read for Trek Nation. Russell Crowe at Murph's Place for instance. Or The Compleat Sean Bean.
4. What is (one of) your guilty pleasure fandom(s)?
Publicly posted RPF. (I have no issues with privately circulated RPF.) Perhaps I should call Boromir/Faramir a guilty pleasure, but it's fiction, so my incest taboo fails to kick in.
5. What is (one of) your guilty pleasure fanfic(s)?
Just about anything involving Lucius Malfoy (other than non-con which I don't read).

Happy birthday and !