Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea...

I think that most people who know me would say that I'm a fairly practical, no-nonsense kind of gal. Romanticism and the esoteric hold little interest for me outside of philosophical debate. However, every now and then I find myself wallowing in the fantastical, day-dreaming flights of fancy and obsessing over that which is not real.... or at least, that which is not yet real; I spend my days moping around my apartment, drinking way too much coffee, smoking too many cigarettes, hardly eating. At these times I always find myself drawn to the random collections of poetry that hover, gathering dust, in-between the rows and rows of serial killer biographies and pulp horror novels lining my book shelves. There is something overly dramatic about poetry that comforts me. The eloquent and luxurious prose somehow validates my histrionics, turning them from the destructive, sad and foolish things they are into something of heart-rending beauty.

So, just for you, dear readers... here's some Alfred Lord Tennyson...


A Farewell.

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

(Tessa by Kelly Humphries)