Because it's been that kind of day...

[trace_of_scarlet]

Flist, bring me your favourite poems or quotes. Show me beautiful words. I'll start:

My birthday began with the water -
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days

I sang in my chains like the sea...

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
- Dylan Thomas

What was I before?
What will I be next?
What am I now?

We have cracked the midnight glass
And loosed the racketing star-crazed night into the room

Go away girl, go away
and let me pack my dreams
now where did I put those yesteryears
made up with broken seams
Where shall I sweep the pieces
my God they still look new
There's a taxi waiting at the door
but there's only room for you
- Spike Milligan

"The air was soft, the stars so fine,
the promise of every cobbled alley so great
that I thought I was in a dream."
- Jack Kerouac

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.
- Roald Dahl

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
- e.e. cummings

Comments

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

From Stephen Fry's (first) autobiography, talking about depression: "Thank the gods there is such a thing as redemption, the redemption that comes in the form of other people the moment you are prepared to believe that they exist."

The first time I read that years ago (so long ago I didn't even remember having read it until I came across that passage when I reread it a little while ago), I had been struggling with my own depression, and that hit so deep that it brought tears to my eyes. It's so incredibly true; people are there and they love you, but depression fucks with your perception so badly that you can't see it. The second you can, it means you're starting to get better, and they'll help.

[analogboyuk.livejournal.com]

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me!

-- William Wordsworth; "Lucy (ii)"

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

-- William Wordsworth; "Lucy (v)"

Be who you are, and say what you mean, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

-- Dr. Freakin' Seuss, baby.

You can go heavy on me, and I will not weigh you down

-- Holly Brook - "Heavy" (Ok, that's not as good as the others, but it carries a huge amount of meaning in my head)

There are a bunch of other things I love but I'm so fucking tired I may die.

[burningmarl.livejournal.com]

Fuck yeah Dylan Thomas :D