NAPOMO: The Strange Music, GK Chesterton

I must admit that I was surprised to find Chesterton had written rather erotic love poetry, but it's exactly what I would have I expected, had I been expecting it. Though I can't help feeling that the lyrical-I is giving himself a hell of a lot to live up to... (to the point that I wonder if it isn't actually intended as bridal mysticism, and the speaker Christ, but that's probably just the result of Too Much Mysticism).


The Strange Music.

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,
But I wander like a minstrel with my harp upon his back,
Though my harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,
Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.

In your strings is hid a music that no hand has e'er let fall,
In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;
Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,
Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.

Not as mine, my soul's anointed, not as mine the rude and light
Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight
Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar
Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be struck once,
Hoary time is a beginner, life a bungler, death a dunce.
But I will not fear to match them - no, by God, I will not fear.
I will learn you, I will play you, and the stars stand still to hear.

GK Chesterton.

Book meme, gacked from mrstater on LJ

( Questions and answers )

By way of introductions

Hum. Difficult to know what to put, particularly given that you have probably read my profile page, since you're here.

As you will guess from it - or observe from my older posts - this journal has a rather idiosyncratic mix of content, though it's mostly either fannish (in particular, at the moment, about Doctor Who, though Harry Potter and Tolkien also come up quite a lot; I've also written fic and meta relating to Dorothy L Sayers, CS Lewis and John Buchan), poetry (generally other peoples' flowers, though sometimes weeds of my own creep in), mediaevalist, or to do with theology and liturgy, from the perspective of a catholic Anglican and armchair mystic (with a weird sense of humour). I love Patrick O'Brian and am vaguely returning to Star Trek, though my journal hasn't much reflected either to date. My fic, when the impulse takes me, is mostly gen, with the odd bit of mild romance; I like filling in holes in canon, or poking away at things that bother me for some reason - commentary on canon in imaginative form. The latter impulse, incidentally, inspired my two Bible fics.

Flocked posts are generally either wailing about my thesis - I'm a grad student, or more personal things to do with spirituality - or otherwise more personal than I want floating about on the net for all to see.

Anyway, I shall be poking about DW looking for interesting journals, because I'm always happy to meet new people, and do subscribe if you think I sound interesting. If, subsequently, you find I'm not, then I won't be hurt if you desubscribe....

And should you have questions, then ask them.