"No; their dread service nerves the heart it warms, / And they are led by noble Hillary."

[larryhammer]

A bit of literary criticism for a warm Wednesday morning:

Two voices are there: one is of the deep;
It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody,
Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,
Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep:
And one is of an old half-witted sheep
Which bleats articulate monotony,
And indicates that two and one are three,
That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep:
And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times
Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes,
The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst:
At other times -- good Lord! I'd rather be
Quite unacquainted with the A.B.C.
Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.

—James Kenneth Stephen,
pub. 1891, written as a Cambridge undergraduate

Testify, brother.

---L.

Subject quote is the final lines of "On Entering Douglas Bay" by William Wordsworth in his half-witted sheep mode.

Comments

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

*enthusiastic round of applause*

Oh yes.

[larryhammer]

Very much yes.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Love that! Damn, he was good--JKS, that is. WW as noted, either fabulous or hopeless.

Nine

[larryhammer]

And far more likely hopeless than not, when you weigh up the contents of his collected poems.

---L.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

That . . . is awesome. :-D

Also on the list of awesome things (I was going to email you this, but since I'm already commenting here): we made excellent use of your One Hundred People, One Poem Each last night in the L5R game I'm running. The PCs were attending a courtly event called the Winding Water Banquet, which involves reciting a lot of poetry; some of my players composed their own poetry for the occasion, but the rest of us were pulling from that text (and occasionally modifying things to suit the event). So thank you muchly for your hard work!

[larryhammer]

Heh. You're welcome!

---L.