Ode on A Grecian Urn by John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
    Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
    A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape
    Of deities or mortals, or of both,
        In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
    What men or gods are these?  What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit?  What struggle to escape?
        What pipes and timbrels?  What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
    Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
        Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve;
        She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
    Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
    For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
    For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
        For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
        A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
    To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
    And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
    Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
        Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
    Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
        Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape!  Fair attitude! with brede
    Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
    Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
    When old age shall this generation waste,
        Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
    Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
        Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Provision

I am extremely, absolutely, undoubtedly, out-of-this-world overwhelmed with everything I need to complete in the next 5 weeks.

Today, I pretty much planned out the rest of my college career on a piece of paper with my messy pixie like handwriting. I have next semester definitely planned out (Animation, Illustration, Philosophy & Aesthetics, Sculpture, Contemporary Art Trends, and Theology 2). And I got started on my 4x3 ft. final drawing for my figure studies class. Then, after a run-in with my boss, I had to come back to my room, write out my entire schedule for the next 5 weeks, and have an emotional break down (although the break-down part was completely optional, but silly chemical imbalances will sway you to make those kind of decisions).

Throughout all of this mess, all I had to eat was an English muffin with jam, a banana, two cups of tea, a chai bomb, and after more influence from chemical imbalances, mad scrapings from the inside of a finished Nutella jar was also added to the list. So when 8:45 rolled around. I figured I should break from English-papering and pop some popcorn.

I should probably mention that popcorn was the last thing I would have chosen to eat at this moment. I wanted comfort food. I've felt like the lowest of the low for the past several days, and I wanted Mac n' Cheese. The most comforting food in the entire universe.

So there I was, going down the hall to my floor's lounge, swinging the popcorn bag in my hand, trying not to think about the fluffy yet crunchy texture of the popped kernels that I just wasn't in the mood to experience. And when I got to the microwave and put the bag in, what do you think I saw sitting on top, discarded there, waiting for someone to eat?

It wasn't Mac n' Cheese.

It was packets of Apple Cinnamon Instant Oatmeal! I know it sounds odd to be excited for something that I didn't even crave for, but it meant that I didn't have to eat popcorn! And it's almost the same as mac n' cheese. Texture wise, that it. It's warm and mooshy! Just what I was longing for, the comfort of something hot and soft, but still being sustainable food.

Thank you, Lord for providing comfort on a day when it was so, very needed.

Now if you'll excuse me... I still have John-Keats-English-papering to get back to...
-Brenna Kathleen

Thoughts that come to me while completing English homework

 

I love words! I often think about words and languages. I’ve discovered words that I like and ones I don’t. I now know that I have an odd love for vowels, and I’m not very fond of consonants.  But think about words.

When I begin to think about them and how they are used, and about how words have opened us up to entire new worlds and ideas. They’re used to describe themselves and other things. Sometimes I think that words are one of God’s greatest creations, but no matter how complex they get, they also seem to be one of God’s simplest creations. They’re one of the simply sweet things in life that are able to pick you up and carry you off to bliss. These simple words with their logical structure are used to describe some of the most complex ideas out there like predestination, the creation of the world, the infiniteness of God, and the Trinity. All these things that we can’t wrap our minds around, we can’t wrap our words around.

They’re so amazingly simple that there are things we can’t apply them to. We can use them to describe our images; we can even put them in our images. We add them to our melodies to give them a certain message and meaning. But there will always be that thing in us, that wonderful thing that we can never apply our words to.

But that’s okay, words already do so much, they deserve a break! Look at how we mistreat them! We abbreviate them and misuse them in our text messages, chat sessions; it’s even made its way into our speech!

And I’m guilty of it too! I fully admit to my relentless beating and bashing of language. I can’t spell my way out of a box and my grammar is horrendous.

But I still love words. Look at a page of writing. Look at this page! See how the English language is written out? And every language has it to some extent- where it’s so linear. There is always some sort of line work going on in the writing.  Every sense of the physical written word is linear and geometric. Yet when you read it, it moves! It flows and curves to whatever it’s describing. The sounds that it makes are so fluid and beautiful when you speak it. A good poem is like a perfect sip of tea (or coffee) that’s just the right temperature. It has a magnificent taste and it warms every bit of your body as it makes it’s way down your throat.  

I love the way that Lewis Smedes talks about it…

            “I like the feel of language; I like the texture of it, the flow, especially when it flows leisurely and lovingly and elaborately through the eddies of memory.”

Even though you’re reading the lines, don’t you feel the ebbing of the language? Like it’s a soft tide washing up on shore, only to retreat back to the sea, and return again a moment later.

Language is truly a blessing and one of the greatest gifts we have been given as human beings. I love words!