Poem for Saturday

In Our Old Shipwrecked Days There Was An Hour
By George Meredith

In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour
When in the firelight steadily aglow,
Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow
Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower
That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat
As lovers to whom Time is whispering.
From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing:
The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat.
Well knew we that Life's greatest treasure lay
With us, and of it was our talk. "Ah, yes!
Love dies!" I said: I never thought it less.
She yearned to me that sentence to unsay.
Then when the fire domed blackening, I found
Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift
Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift:--
Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!

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You already know where I spent my morning and most of my afternoon so I have not much left to report, nor to say really, except for pete's sake don't read spoilers if you don't want to be spoiled and don't complain to me that I am making you not want to see the movie if you did read spoilers. You are the only person who can ruin a movie for you. I am going to see it again tomorrow, so I expect I will be just as boring. This is not a good time of year to see goslings around the lake, though I could see both the Canadian geese and the big white geese out the rear windows of the complex, and unless we stop at Target for laundry necessities I don't expect much else tomorrow. Tonight we had dinner with my parents, who were relatively calm and only nagged us about minor things like when we will be able to make vacation plans for next August, which is based on older son's Bar Mitzvah rehearsal schedule.

In case anyone missed it in the HP squee, the Theban Band did Vorenus/Pullo art! They are not my number one couple of the series -- that would be either Servilia/Octavia, a guilty Vorenus/Antony, an even more guilty Pullo/Octavian and the most guilty of all, Octavia/Octavian -- but it is still lovely to see them illustrated so.

Oh yeah, and I wrote a rather uninspired review of "Errand of Mercy", distracted beforehand by needing to get things done so I could go to the movie and afterward by wanting to say things about the movie itself. Talk about a guilty pleasure -- Kirk agitating for war, Kor completely charming and villainous at the same time, Spock praising the virtues of cultural imperialism and jumping to the same wrongheaded conclusions as Kirk. And the same citadel as the one from Pike's memory in "The Menagerie"! That style of architecture really gets around!


Our extended summer is finally over; it is in the twenties right now, and the leaves are finally on the way down. I hope everyone gets to see a hillside somewhere like this at some point.