Spring poem

The Spring by Thomas Carew

Now that the winter’s gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes; and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream:
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo and the humble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring,
In triumph to the world, the youthful spring:
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long’d-for May.
Now all things smile: only my love doth lower,
Nor hath the scalding noon-day sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal’d, and makes her pity cold.
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fire-side, but in the cooler shade
Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season: only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January.

Itchy fingers

It has been a long time since I last posted.

I started this blog having been inspired by a certain literary festival event which drew me into the world of book blogging, and very soon I had thrown myself onto that bandwagon and was throwing my opinions about like a seasoned pro. Poor old internet - it does have to deal with a great deal of superfluous nonsense sometimes!

I am no literary critic, and find it easier to talk about things I like, which means that my posts have always been very onesided. Passionate, no doubt, but not up to date on the latest works. I grew frustrated with my offerings, and the blogging didn't change my life in the way I had been so sure that it would when I started.

My posts grew less frequent as I found I had less to say, and I found a job I liked and took up more of my time. I slowly wound to a meandering halt in the middle of 2011.

I suppose it was at this time that I started working on my novel again, which satisfied the creative outlet that I was using the blog for. Now, with my first complete draft finished, and in the hands of a friend to do a first edit, I find my fingers itching to write something else, and I thought of this as a means of appeasing that itch.

I'm not sure what I'll use this for now. I'd like to carry on talking about literature, but I also want to note down my thoughts on life (both mine and the world around me). The world is such a big place that one's place in it can feel small and insignificant. I'd like to try and reverse that feeling.

I was having a chat to a friend about the things and people which inspire me recently, and made the point that inspiration doesn't necessarily have to come from events or people that the World decides to inspire us. Your best friend can be an inspiration because they don't put up with the shit life hands them, but just puts their shoulder to the wheel and carries on regardless. In the words of Rainer Maria Rilke in The Ninth Elegy: 'Because being here is much, and because all this Here and Now, so fleeting, seems to require us and strangely concerns us. Us the most fleeting of all. Just once, everything, only for once. Once and no more. And we, too, once. And never again. But this having been once, though only once, having been on earth - can it ever be cancelled?'

So - I'll be back periodically to note my thoughts and feelings on films, books, politics, sunsets, poetry, friendship, food, education .... in short, my thoughts on life. I don't expect them to be the greatest pieces of prose ever written, but that's not why I now choose to blog. I just want a little piece of me out there in the world. That's enough.