2 days ago i went to a concert with verone, flora and grace. i'd been looking forward to it for days because it was Sebelius' Finlandia and Rachmaninoff's piano concerto no. 3, both my favourite orchestral pieces.
Finlandia brought me back to my childhood in england, to the moment when i was playing the bassoon part in the joint school orchestra in the boys school hall, jocelyn sitting beside me, playing the same piece.
i was so captured. such nostalgia.
(well, just less than 2 months' time i'll be seeing sarah and helen in london again, i'd say it's a good news out of a bad one at least..)
after the concert, verone bought us some yummy XTC gelato as we walked along the seafront espanade, it brought me back to reality. the tsimshatsui seafront i was so used to a few years ago, so present yet such past-tense now... i winked and found no tears in my eyelids... somehow instinctly, i grabbed my phone from my jeans and found i had missed a call...... i'd accidentally turned off the ring, oops.
* * *
doesn't it make you feel good when someone says he likes you to moan (complain)? somebody said only close ppl do it..
Finlandia brought me back to my childhood in england, to the moment when i was playing the bassoon part in the joint school orchestra in the boys school hall, jocelyn sitting beside me, playing the same piece.
i was so captured. such nostalgia.
(well, just less than 2 months' time i'll be seeing sarah and helen in london again, i'd say it's a good news out of a bad one at least..)
after the concert, verone bought us some yummy XTC gelato as we walked along the seafront espanade, it brought me back to reality. the tsimshatsui seafront i was so used to a few years ago, so present yet such past-tense now... i winked and found no tears in my eyelids... somehow instinctly, i grabbed my phone from my jeans and found i had missed a call...... i'd accidentally turned off the ring, oops.
* * *
doesn't it make you feel good when someone says he likes you to moan (complain)? somebody said only close ppl do it..
posted by betty chan at 10:28 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Betty
I haven't checked in for awhile, but I'm always happy to see what you are up to.
I was reading poetry tonight, and thought I'd send one along.
David
To The Memory Of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare, And What He Hath Left Us
Ben Jonson
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For silliest ignorance on these may light,
Which when it sounds at best but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urges all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.
These are as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron. What could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and indeed
Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the Age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great but disproportioned Muses,
For if I thought my judgement were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee I would not seek
For names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or, like a Mercury, to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all; thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion; and that he
Who casts to write a living line must sweat
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame,
Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn;
For a good poet's made as well as born.
And such wert thou. Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well turned and true-filed lines:
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That did so take Eliza and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there:
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.
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