Thursday, January 12, 2012

Poem for Thursday and Baltimore Basilica

The Definition of Love
By Andrew Marvell

My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown
But vainly flapped its Tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixt,
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant Poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole World on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embraced.

Unless the giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the World should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.

As lines so Loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite can never meet.

Therefore the Love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the Mind,
And opposition of the Stars.

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I did work and chores on Wednesday morning while Daniel slept late, again, before going out to lunch with my father. Then I spent several hours of the afternoon working on yet another Silly Tarot Project -- this one entirely the fault of Dementordelta, for which I thank her heartily -- before Daniel got home (after losing many rounds of poker to my father, apparently) and later Adam. While I folded laundry, we watched two episodes of Deep Space Nine including the Bond parody "Our Man Bashir" which was a big hit.

Paul made sweet potato and chick pea shepherd's pie for dinner, which was delicious, then we watched Harry's Law, which had hyped Erica Durance as a woman who thinks she's Wonder Woman, which sounded like David E. Kelley was planning cracky hilarity. In fact it was a very gritty storyline about spousal abuse and Durance was terrific, though the very end of that storyline was lame...and the other case, about a woman trying to gain custody of a gorilla to keep it from being imprisoned in a zoo, was quite moving too. Here are some more photos of the Baltimore Basilica decorated for Epiphany:















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