What to read

oggbashan said:

This poem by John Donne:


A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
John Donne, 1572 - 1631

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“The breath goes now," and some say, “No,"

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion.
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two:
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do;

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

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TANSTAAFL58 said:

What are the circumstances of the parting? Was the act of leaving "a far, far better thing..."? Was it hollow, dead, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing..."?

Poetry seems appropriate. " My Love is like a Red, Red Rose" by Robbie Burns?

A love poem to two women? Not even Shakespeare was up to that!

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KeithD said:

James is back.

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Hypoxia said:

ObTopic: Shakespearean sonnets nicely fill the time. But watch you accent.

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NotWise said:

I forgot to mention that the event happens just before Christmas. Somehow that didn't seem important when I first asked the question. Anyway, with that consideration I decided he would read "The Gift of the Magi."

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"To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

...

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

...

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields."

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NotWise said:

I forgot to mention that the event happens just before Christmas. Somehow that didn't seem important when I first asked the question. Anyway, with that consideration I decided he would read "The Gift of the Magi."

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NotWise said:

The final "love scene" in my current story will not involve any sex. Instead, the male protagonist and the two female protagonists will curl up together while he reads to them.

If you were in their position -- about to say goodbye, possibly to never see each other again -- what would you read?

My leading candidate right now is The Wind in the Willows. I know it's a 'childrens' story, but so what?

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