Thursday, September 28, 2006

In celebration of the human spirit

May I present to you, 2 beautiful poems I've came across these few days.

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed;
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

They're beautiful not because the words are pretty. They're beautiful because they rarely come by. And amidst the dark world we live in today, and always have, the contrast simply accentuates the inner spark it brings. For William Blake once said, "Without contrast, they'd be no progression."

Indeed, true 'progression' of humans at its best.

posted@11:44 PM

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