eye_of_a_cat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eye_of_a_cat) wrote2004-11-02 12:48 am
eye_of_a_cat) wrote2004-11-02 12:48 am
yes, but if it was...
Apparently, the rest of the world does not stay up until half-past midnight arguing about why straight men don't write love poems any more.
This small part of the world does.
After a small scuffle, John Donne won the 'Poet You'd Most Like To Write You Love Poems' title; Byron's a little too rock-star-ish. (Although there was this group presentation on Renaissance love and relationships I did at undergraduate level, and rapper!Donne worked oddly well. Er, yeah.) Shakespeare got a contest of his own for the 'Which Sonnet Would You Most Like Someone To Write For You?' title, on which there was dissent.
My housemate's:
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath every one one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend;
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen's cheeck all art of beauty set
And you in Grecian tires are painted new;
Speak of the spring and foison of the year;
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessed shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.
Mine:
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
Honorable mention:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head;
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheecks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Fandom winner: omg Delenn/Lennier!
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not t'have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults we both be flattered be.
W. H. Auden's Lullaby won the Best Modern Love Poem title. We concluded that straight men don't write love poems because straight men write love songs instead, although I can't really think of any love songs that I'd want to have written for me. The best love songs, or at least the ones I like, are miserable. Bruce Springsteen's Brilliant Disguise is the most accurate love song ever written, probably, but it's not exactly the kind of thing you'd ever want someone to sing about you, is it?
Maybe I'm just listening to the wrong kind of song.
This small part of the world does.
After a small scuffle, John Donne won the 'Poet You'd Most Like To Write You Love Poems' title; Byron's a little too rock-star-ish. (Although there was this group presentation on Renaissance love and relationships I did at undergraduate level, and rapper!Donne worked oddly well. Er, yeah.) Shakespeare got a contest of his own for the 'Which Sonnet Would You Most Like Someone To Write For You?' title, on which there was dissent.
My housemate's:
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath every one one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend;
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen's cheeck all art of beauty set
And you in Grecian tires are painted new;
Speak of the spring and foison of the year;
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessed shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.
Mine:
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
Honorable mention:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head;
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheecks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Fandom winner: omg Delenn/Lennier!
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not t'have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults we both be flattered be.
W. H. Auden's Lullaby won the Best Modern Love Poem title. We concluded that straight men don't write love poems because straight men write love songs instead, although I can't really think of any love songs that I'd want to have written for me. The best love songs, or at least the ones I like, are miserable. Bruce Springsteen's Brilliant Disguise is the most accurate love song ever written, probably, but it's not exactly the kind of thing you'd ever want someone to sing about you, is it?
Maybe I'm just listening to the wrong kind of song.