Did you think I would leave you hanging with a snippet about chocolate for the whole day?
Don't be so silly.
It's course night. Jacob is teaching a course at the university this summer. I mentioned here that he was a little nervous about it. He has no fears of public speaking so what has him tense is the subject matter.
Romantic Poetry.
You have know it hits close to home when he didn't even have to look very hard to come up with poems for the course material. He had his favorites all picked out. He's been quoting them to me for years. He can stand up on the church roof with his hammer all summer and recite dozens of Shakespeare's sonnets and drive everyone crazy, in between the neverending singing, of course. He uses the poems in weddings and usually has a selection at hand if couples want one printed on their service bulletins or used within their ceremony. He always knows the perfect one for any particular couple.
He's nervous because he has to incorporate the history in with it-the broader scope on how society and politics enters into the dialogues created by the poets of those centuries in which their best works were created. Or something. No small potatoes, that task.
However, he's going for history-lite because the poems themselves are to be the centerpiece. Here's a snippet of what I hear over coffee each morning, a willing assistant/victim in Jacob's master plan to single-handedly revive and rekindle romance in the universe. Romance as dispensed by gruff, serious men with hearts of pure gold (or jello possibly). He's doing this for fun.
These four are my favorites:
At Last
At last, when all the summer shine
That warmed life's early hours is past,
Your loving fingers seek for mine
And hold them close, at last, óat last!
Not oft the robin comes to build
Its nest upon the leafless bough
By autumn robbed, by winter chilled,
But you, dear heart, you love me now.
Though there are shadows on my brow
And furrows on my cheek, in truth,
The marks where Time's remorseless plough
Broke up the blooming sward of Youth,
Though fled is every girlish grace
Might win or hold a lover's vow,
Despite my sad and faded face,
And darkened heart, you love me now!
I count no more my wasted tears;
They left no echo of their fall;
I mourn no more my lonesome years;
This blessed hour atones for all.
I fear not all that Time or Fate
May bring to burden heart or brow,
Strong in the love that came so late,
Our souls shall keep it always now!
~ Elizabeth Akers Allen
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
Woods or steepy mountains yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.
The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
~Christopher Marlowe
I loved her for that she was beautiful
I loved her for that she was beautiful;
And that to me she seem'd to be all Nature,
And all varieties of things in one:
Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise
All light and laughter in the morning; fear
No petty customs nor appearances;
But think what others only dream'd about;
And say what others did but think; and do
What others dared not do: so pure withal
In soul; in heart and act such conscious yet
Such perfect innocence, she made round her
A halo of delight. 'Twas these which won me;ó
And that she never school'd within her breast
One thought or feeling, but gave holiday
To all; and that she made all even mine
In the communion of love: and we
Grew like each other, for we loved each other;
She, mild and generous as the air in spring;
And I, like earth all budding out with love.
~Philip James Bailey
Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou artó
Not in lone splendour 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 earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
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 fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever, or else swoon to death.
~John Keats
He writes his own as well but I'm not permitted to share any of them. In any event, what a lucky bunch of students. I feel like I'm auditing it now and it's been really educational. In between the starry-eyed adulation of listening to him deliver the lines, that is. My god, it's better than sex.
