My Opera is closing 1st of March

902

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence." ~Ansel Adams

Welcome joy and welcome sorrow


Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe's weed and Hermes' feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together.
Meadows sweet where flames are under,
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomine;
Funeral, and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull;
Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra regal-dress'd
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale;--
Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;
Oh the sweetness of the pain!
Muses bright, and muses pale,
Bare your faces of the veil;
Let me see; and let me write
Of the day, and of the night -
Both together: - let me slake
All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!
Let my bower be of yew,
Interwreath'd with myrtles new;
Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,
And my couch a low grass-tomb.
-John Keats

INCREDIBLE!Arthur Rimbaud - Le Dormeur du Val (1870)

Comments

Axel SteffenNewAxel1974 Sunday, July 17, 2011 2:30:29 PM

holistic poetry?

BLACKlittleTHORN Sunday, July 17, 2011 2:33:39 PM

I really like this John Keat's poem as it embrace both extreme of the human "feeling" spectrum. Usually poems are about either one or the other.

Axel SteffenNewAxel1974 Sunday, July 17, 2011 2:36:09 PM

"Sombre Saturn, Momus hale" - what does it mean?

BLACKlittleTHORN Sunday, July 17, 2011 2:40:14 PM

Don't you know? wink

That Saturn is the planet ruling Capricorn and is supposed to have on the native of this sign a very stern effect, strict, rather...sombre (dark, deep, no frills) as for Momus I have no idea yet. It makes me think of a deep-sea monster bigsmile

Axel SteffenNewAxel1974 Sunday, July 17, 2011 2:42:59 PM

I know what the Saturn is - but what would the poet say?

BLACKlittleTHORN Sunday, July 17, 2011 3:30:07 PM

Oh right? Sorry...
As for what he meant I don't know...sounds good though doh

Axel SteffenNewAxel1974 Sunday, July 17, 2011 4:04:45 PM

Okay!
It sounds good to me too.

Phantas31 (Richard)Phantas31 Sunday, July 17, 2011 7:11:50 PM

I looked it up...and Momus seems to be the God of criticism, of mockery. Also perceived as god of poets and writers... (from wikipedia)

Is there any relation between the poem and the picture, or did it just fit ?

Axel SteffenNewAxel1974 Monday, July 18, 2011 12:23:06 PM

Cryptic words of the poet, but I:heart: it.

BLACKlittleTHORN Monday, July 18, 2011 6:23:36 PM

Yes I agree that the whole poem is about opposites and that's what I like about it. I am grateful for your explanations up I should have looked it up but because I understood the general tone I did not feel like digging up...maybe I should be more thorough....

As for the picture, I thought that in a way it was fitting: the opposite between man and beast, beauty and "ugliness", "good" and "evil" or what is perceived as being good or evil....

Phantas31 (Richard)Phantas31 Monday, July 18, 2011 7:51:41 PM

I like the picture, I was just wondering what the connection was wink
And don't feel bad about not looking it up - I was interested to know who Momus was in any event smile

I started reading through the poem but found it hard to figure out the rhyming scheme...it changes a few times and that makes it intruiging ...

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