Right now I am nervously waiting for any news on the results of the Cornwall Film Festival, seeing if I've won any money with my film Cowboy Love. So I thought I'd share something with you.
When I was young, I was OBSESSED with dolphins.
I mean, I had to have them. On my sheets, my notebooks, as stuffed animals and on jewelery. It was the only thing I drew and the only animal I cared about.
But when I found out about a book called "An Ring of Endless Light" about a girl who deals with the trauma of her dying grandfather through time spent studying dolphin and human communication (and of course a lot of romance), I pretty much died with anticipation to read it. As an eleven year old this book covered all the things that were important to me: love, anything terribly heavy and dramatic (death) and dolphins. But they include a poem which the book was named after, and I thought the first three lines of it was the most beautiful poetry I had ever heard:
I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
All calm as it was bright ;
I'm sure no one else can understand the magic that this book brought to me but here you go anyways, a poem I like, which is rare for me to find.
I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
All calm as it was bright ;
And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years,
Driven by the spheres,
Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world
And all her train were hurled.
The doting Lover in his quaintest strain
Did there complain ;
Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,
Wit’s sour delights ;
With gloves and knots, the silly snares of pleasure ;
Yet his dear treasure
All scattered lay, while he his eyes did pour
Upon a flower.
The darksome Statesman hung with weights and woe,
Like a thick midnight fog, moved there so slow
He did nor stay nor go ;
Comdemning thoughts, like sad eclipses, scowl
Upon his soul,
And clouds of crying witnesses without
Pursued him with one shout.
Yet digged the mole, and, lest his ways be found,
Worked under ground,
Where he did clutch his prey ; but One did see
That policy.
Churches and altars fed him, perjuries
Were gnats and flies ;
It rained about him blood and tears, but he
Drank them as free.
The fearful Miser on a heap of rust
Sat pining all his life there, did scarce trust
His own hands with the dust ;
Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
In fear of thieves.
Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
And hugged each one his pelf.
The downright Epicure placed heaven in sense
And scorned pretence ;
While others, slipped into a wide excess,
Said little less ;
The weaker sort, slight, trivial wares enslave,
Who think them brave ;
And poor despisèd Truth sat counting by
Their victory.
Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing and weep, soared up into the Ring ;
But most would use no wing.
‘O fools’, said I, ‘thus to prefer dark night
Before true light,
To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day
Because it shows the way,
The way which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God,
A way where you might tread the sun, and be
More bright than he.’
But as I did their madness so discuss,
One whispered thus,
This Ring the Bridegroom did for none provide
But for his Bride.
"The World" by Henry Vaughan
No comments:
Post a Comment