tree_and_leaf: Peter Davison in Five's cricket gear, leaning on wall with nose in book, looking a bit like Peter Wimsey. (Books)
I can't believe we haven't had any tennyson yet. Something Must Be Done. And we will have this, as I have just heard Bryn Terfyl singing it (which is pretty amazing...)

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaƫ to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

In a fit of absent-mindedness, I googled "now drops the crimson", and got a whole lot of rather icky-looking gothic/ urban fantasy stories about vampires. The sort that thing vampires are a Good Thing, I mean. Dominic disapproves.

In other news, I managed to spend last night and much of today accidentally writing Narnia-fic, which has somehow ended up being about the Problem of Susan, which I never imagined I'd write on. It was supposed to be about Lucy, anyway. It is now stalled, as I have to write Aslan, and I'm not sure I can. Though this is a bit stupid, given that I've written Jesus.
tree_and_leaf: JRR Tolkien at desk, smoking pipe, caption Master of Middle Earth (tolkien)
I was listening to Radio 3's Drama on 3, which consisted of dramatised readings of Tennyson's sea poetry - largely because of the sheer brilliance of the acapella/ folk trio Coope, Boyes and Simpson, who were singing sea songs (much as I love Tennyson, I find Enoch Arden rather tiresome)

The play, if that's what you'd call it, concluded with Crossing the Bar, and though the later literary reference this usually throws up for me is 'Anne of the Island', it suddenly struck me that this voyage into death is really rather like the voyage from the Grey Havens into the West.

Well - I'm not claiming it as a direct influence; in any case both of them are playing with (a) a fairly natural metaphor and (b) a number of older images, such as the voyage of S Brendan, that Breton legend about the ferryman who took the dead in his boat to Little Britain, and, I bet, also the ship of souls in Dante's Purgatory (which is itself riffing on similar voyages, most noticably as a blessed counterpart to Charon's boat, though here a sea under God's good heaven replaces the underworld river).

And maybe I should stop typing/ free associating.... I have an interview for a scholarship tomorrow, and I've also just finished redrafting a thesis chapter - though I bet my supervisor will still think the conclusion is too 'preachy'. Sigh.

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