I wouldn't have had the slightest idea that tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my blog if it hadn't been pointed out to me! I kind of knew it wasn't the best time for me to be starting a blog, but on the other had I wanted to write and talk about what I was reading and listening to and so I went ahead and did it anyway. And I'm awfully glad I did because of the lovely people I've connected with through it. My warmest thanks to everyone who keeps stopping by despite my slackadaisical posting schedule, and especially to those of you who email and comment. That is what makes blogging so rewarding and fun.
So in celebration of that, and also because I wanted to post something beautiful for Valentine's Day but didn't get around to it, I thought I'd go back to where I started.
Bright Star by John Keats
Bright Star, would I were as steadfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round the earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors.
No- yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake forever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live forever- or else swoon to death.
Obviously I love this one, and in almost too many ways to write about, but I one of the things that struck me first, and still does, is this impossibly gifted poet throwing his lot in with the rest of us common mortals.
And then this, because I think it's Mr. Frame at his most poetic. That first verse especially is a stunner.
Roddy Frame - Here Comes The Ocean