Useless Achiecements

Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Many times we are proud of our achievements on. The houses that we buy, the cars that we drive, the luxurious life that some have, but all too often we forget that non of that is going to last. Sure one might be able to enjoy a life of luxury and goods, but one fact is true, none of that is going to last, and that is one of the main themes in this poem. What I like about this poem is that I can picture the scne. The desert, a place ususally viewed as dry, lifeless, and with nothing but solitude, and the remaining of a statue. Two huge trunks, that were the legs of the sculpture of a king, who was probably vry reach and powerful, and under that statue  the following was written ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair”. All of Ozymandias kingdom, all his power, and all his works are now resumed to nothing but two legs in the middle of a desert. I liked this poem because it reminds me that nothing that I own will last long, and that motivates me to search for a place where time can’t destroy what i built.

Beauty

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck (Sonnet 14)
by William Shakespeare
Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck, And yet methinks I have astronomy; But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality; Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell, Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind, Or say with princes if it shall go well By oft predict that I in heaven find. But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, And, constant stars, in them I read such art As truth and beauty shall together thrive If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert: Or else of thee this I prognosticate, Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

One of the reason I liked this poem is because of its ababcdcdefefgg rhyme schem, which is the format shakespeare wrote many of his sonets. What the author of this poem is saying is that he doesnt depend on the stars to know how happy he is, or how well his life is going. What he depends on is on the stars found is his lover’s eye, from which  he finds beauty and truth, and thus maybe happiness. The las two lines of this sonnet are basicly saying that if his lover dies, that will be day when everything will come to an end and beauty should exist no more.

Definition of love

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,  but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthian, Ch 13

The number one reason that I chose this passage is because it is the best definition that I have found so far of what true love is. The first part of it, shows how useless any gifts that we can possibly obtain, either spiritual, material, academically, or anything else, if one cant love. It doesnt matter how smart one is, how much one has, how wise someone is, if one has never loved none of that means anything.

The second part of it gives a very good description of what true love is, saying that love endures any problems, and searches the good of the other just as much as your own, not rejoicing on anything

The third part of it goes on saying that everything in life passes, nations, people, cultures, science, but love endures forever, and never dies

Knowing one’s self

We Are Many

Of the many men whom I am, whom we are, I cannot settle on a single one. They are lost to me under the cover of clothing They have departed for another city.When everything seems to be set to show me off as a man of intelligence, the fool I keep concealed on my person takes over my talk and occupies my mouth. On other occasions, I am dozing in the midst of people of some distinction, and when I summon my courageous self, a coward completely unknown to me swaddles my poor skeleton in a thousand tiny reservations. When a stately home bursts into flames, instead of the fireman I summon, an arsonist bursts on the scene, and he is I. There is nothing I can do. What must I do to distinguish myself? How can I put myself together? All the books I read lionize dazzling hero figures, brimming with self-assurance. I die with envy of them; and, in films where bullets fly on the wind, I am left in envy of the cowboys, left admiring even the horses. But when I call upon my DASHING BEING, out comes the same OLD LAZY SELF, and so I never know just WHO I AM, nor how many I am, nor WHO WE WILL BE BEING. I would like to be able to touch a bell and call up my real self, the truly me, because if I really need my proper self, I must not allow myself to disappear. While I am writing, I am far away; and when I come back, I have already left. I should like to see if the same thing happens to other people as it does to me, to see if as many people are as I am, and if they seem the same way to themselves. When this problem has been thoroughly explored, I am going to school myself so well in things that, when I try to explain my problems, I shall speak, not of self, but of geography. Pablo Neruda The reason why I liked this poem is because it is something that not only I, but many other people can relate to. How many times have we lost our sense of self because of dreams, apearance, loves? To me this is what Pablo is saying on the first stanza when he says “they are lost under the cover of clothing, they have departed for another city.” On the second until the third stanza, Neruda gives examples of times when he know that he could’done better, acted differently, said something smarter or beautyful, but instead all that propelled out of his body were foolish words, coward acts, and complete deception. But as we see on the next to last stanza these acts and words are not who he is. On the two last stanzas, however, Neruda writes that the reason why this “laszy self, and “dashing being” comes out is not because that’s his true self, but because he is lost inside of himself, and thus, doesn’t know how to bring his courageous, or wise, self out. But as we see on the last three lines of the poem, he plans to study others and himslef so much, that he’ll know the true self just like a map, allowing him to express his true self.

Masks

We Wear the Mask
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-- This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask! This poem was given to me by a friend, and the reason I liked it is because of its plain and dry theme. It doesnt talk about fary tales, nor love, nor happiness ever after, Its main them is that everyone wears a mask and that most people just pretend to be happy. "We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries to thee from torture souls arise." In my opinion this line alone summarizes the whole theme of the poem. It basicly says that even though many people go around wearing a smile on their faces, their souls might be crying for help, but we can't let the world know, because we have to always be or look happy. Another part of this poem that really atracted me was it rhyme schme, with basicly every lone of each stanza rhyming with each other which gives a nice flow, with the exception of the phrase " we wear the mask!" which is like this phrase that is totally out of the rhyming pattern, but yet gives off theme in a clear and powerful way

Dreams

Adopt a Poet | Add to Notebook | E-mail to Friend | Print

I Dreamed.       I dreamed a dream and in that dream, I dreamed that I had dreamed a dream, Of hope and fairytales come true, I dreamed a dream and thought of truth, I dreamed a dream of life and love, Of fate and angels and God above, I dreamed a dream of good wishes and friends, I dreamed a dream I dreaded to end, But then I woke into my dream, I dreamed I woke in a world obscene, I dreamed a dream of violence and hate, And once again I dreamed of fate, I dreamed a dream of terror and fear, I dreamed that each word went unheard, And so children never spoke a word, I dreamed a dream of demons and beasts, I dreamed a dream that ended at last, I woke in my bed and wondered if, I dreamed a dream of dreams or if, I dreamed a dream of truth that night, And if so I wondered which was truth, And which was merely a dream.Emma Wright The number one reason that I chose this poem is becasue it talks about dreams, and nightmares, something that really grabs my atention and intrigues me, no matter how weird or simple a dream is. This poem talks about two worlds: a world where peace reigns, where there only good things happens, where there is always, peace, and no problems; the other world is that of destruction, imorality, death, and suffering. The best part of this poem, in my opinion, is the end when the author writes “I woke in my bed and wondered if I dreamed a dream of dreams or if, I dreamed a dream of truth tat night, and if so I wondered which was truth, and which was merely a dream.” I liked this part ecause it made think about how many things in America are so wonderful, and about all the rights that we have, all of this is a reality for us. In other countries, however, like Brazil and other South American countries, that’s their dream, and their reality is violence and suffering.

Anger

A Poison Tree
by William Blake
I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I watered it in fears Night and morning with my tears, And I sunned it with smiles And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright, And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine,-- And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole; In the morning, glad, I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree. I liked this poem because it talks about nobody should keep their feeling bottled up inside, specially that of anger, guilt, and worries. Not onlly because it consumes us inside, and eats up our spirit like some sort of bacterial infection, but also because in some strange and evil way, it also kills the person being hated. In this poem, Blake talks about how he was angry with one friend but then felt fine after confessing it to him, however, when he was angery at his foe and did not tell him, the anger just grew and grew.

killing the religious view of Jesus

So, a little Child, come down

And hear a child’s tongue like Thy own;

Take me by the hand and walk,

“And listen to my baby-talk.

To Thy Father show my prayer

(He will look, Thou art so fair),

And say: “O Father, I, Thy Son,

Bring the prayer of a little one.”

The reason why I chose “Little Jesus” by Francis Thompson, is because instead of puttinig Jesus as a holy and almost unreachable being, as many religions and poets put him, it depicts Jesus as a more human being,  who once was a child, and who even though was the son of God, did express an almost fragile apearence of a kid who longs to play, learn, and live, something that many people can relate to.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!