With certitude
Simeon opened
ancient arms
to infant light.
Decades
before the cross, the tomb
and the new life,
he knew
new life.
What depth
of faith he drew on,
turning illumined
towards deep night.
— Denise Levertov
(Source: geoffcolmer.blogspot.com)
Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting,
Which clad in damask mantles deck the arbours,
And then behold your lips, where sweet love harbours,
My eyes present me with a double doubting.
For, viewing both alike, hardly my mind supposes
Whether the roses be your lips, or your lips the roses.
— John Wilbye (1575-1638)
(Source: allpoetry.com)
[video]
“Great love affairs start with Champagne.” — Honore de Balzac (via caryrandolph)
Viviana Durante taking her curtain call at the end of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. Photo © David Secombe 1994. (via The London Column)
[video]
Heading to Zurich in February!
A quite fiendish poem by G. Nolst Trenité on the vagaries of English pronunciation.
After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.