[META] Blogroll Addition

I've added Pearsall's Books, Pearsall Helms' blog, to the blogroll. He also has an interesting mp3 mixes site that I'll have to check out.

[BRIEF NOTE] Yeats, "Easter 1916"

I've caught the poetry meme from sbisson (here, Dylan Thomas' "The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower") and dsgood (here, Carl Sandburg's "Manitoba Childe Roland").

Here's my favourite poem, by Yeats.

Easter 1916

I
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

II
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near to my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.


III
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of it all.

IV
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmer name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse--
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

[NON BLOG] Afternoon's Outing

I met three friends from grad school--A., N., and S.--for brunch at OverEasy, at 208 Bloor Street West. It was a fun gathering; I'm happy that I ran into N. back in September on Bloor. Before we left, we noticed Jimmy Fallon sitting two table saway from us, apparently taking a break while shooting a film in Toronto with Drew Barrymore.

Oh. Hi, you three! I came out to them as a blogger today. I only realized Wednesday night that I'd forgotten to come out to them as not straight (choose your own adjective, since I can't). No more surprises here, I think.

Afterwards, I headed south to the Thomson Collection with talktooloose, for my second visit there (see my brief mention of my last trip, and vaneramos' more detailed description here). It's nice to visit art galleries, particularly nice to visit them with people who actually know things about the graphic arts, exceptionally nice to run into a friendly and knowledgeable curator alongside. It's just a pity that the collection will be closed down, before being catalogued and being prepared for display in the new Gehry wing of the Art Gallery of Ontario. I'll be blogging about my two most recent experiences at the Thomson Collection shortly.