“The only regret I will have in dying, is if it is not for love.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Constancy to an Ideal Object
(Excerpt – last stanza)
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when
The woodman winding westward up the glen
At wintry dawn, where o’er the sheep-track’s maze
The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist’ning haze,
Sees full before him, gliding without tread,
An image with a glory round its head;
The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues,
Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues!
Where does reality and magical realism intersect? Coleridge poses an interesting question, do we know when we are chasing our own shadows? I think we need to keep the hope of magical realism alive and well as we march into the uncertainty of how long this disruption to our lives is going to last and at what cost? Love, Light and Calm Thoughts sounds a lot like stay calm and carry on. It’s going to be alright, is the balm for our times and a reminder that this too shall end.
The Good, Great Man
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits
Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits
If any man obtain that which he merits
Or any merit that which he obtains.”
REPLY TO THE ABOVE
For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain!
What would’st thou have a good great man obtain?
Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain?
Or throne of corses which his sword had slain?
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? three treasures, LOVE, and LIGHT,
And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infant’s breath:
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the ANGEL DEATH!
Fourteen Lines 