Sophie's Pride and Emergency Care Guide To Dating...

So, Momma Lou tagged me to do this, so I might as well, just for fun and to keep me from going to bed ;)

The rules are:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Ok, number one...I have four books here, I am in the process of reading them all: Emergency Care (didn't know if that counted, since it's a text book...I live by this book now!!!), Sophie's World (I've been plodding through this philosophical muddle for two years now...ugh), Pride and Prejudice (yay!!!), and Jane Austen's Guide to Dating (just for kicks and giggles....its lame!).

Ok, here goes Emergency Care...eh, never mind, its pictures on 123, nothing to quote!

Sophie's World...hmmm, don't remember this part!
"You'd better have a good explanation."
"It has to do with the UN," said Sophie. "I was detained by hostile troops in Lebanon."
"Sure...you're just in love!"

Pride and Prejudice!!! Whoo!!!
But why Mr. Darcy came so often to the Parsonage, it was more difficult to understand. It could not be society, as he frequently sat there ten minutes without opening his lips; and when he did speak, it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice -- a sacrifice to propriety, not a pleasure to himself. He seldom appeared really animated. (yaaaaaay Mr. Darcy!!!)

And now for the humor...my Dating Guide!!
Charles's sister Louisa even tells Captain Wentworth as much: "We do so wish that Charles had married Anne instead...I wish she had accepted him. We should all have liked her a great deal better..."
Charles isn't still carrying a torch for Anne.


So, there are some of the things I am reading...maybe I should have done the Aristotle translation we are doing for school, but nah, that's boring. So, there you go, an extended version of my reading list!!!

And I tag....

1) Suzanne of 'Suzanne's Blog' because she is really fun and I saw her yesterday!!

2) Charris of 'Finding Neverland' because she's at college and I miss her and I don't know what she is reading, besides magazines ;)

3) Miss Steinberg of 'Quemodmodum', but she is my teacher, so I can guess most of the things she is reading, such as my future Latin final and History term paper!!!

4) Bekah of 'Oh the Things You Can Think...When You're Pink?' because she is my sister, and there are random moments when I feel like bugging her!

5) Joseph of 'Thoughts' because his blog title is so original and he hasn't done anything on it recently and he apparently has a huge reading list...so, lets see what you are trying to read, shall we???

I Have a Rendezvous with Death...

Now, this particular poem was written during World War I. It was written by a young Frenchman and American citizen, Alan Seeger, in 1915, but was not published until 1917, a year after his rendezvous with death at the battlefront at Belloy-en-Santerre, July 4, 1916. He attended Harvard University, and was T.S. Eliot's classmate and friend. His last postcard sent home to his family read:
"We go up to the attack tomorrow. This will probably be the biggest thing yet. We are to have the honor of marching in the first wave...I will write you soon if I get through all right. If not, my only earthly care is for my poems...I am glad to be in the first wave. If you are in this thing at all it is best to be in to the limit. And this is the supreme experience." - June 28, 1916

I Have a Rendezvous with Death...
by Alan Seeger

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air--
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath--
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,

When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

A Poison Tree - Or Bitter Me

I came across this poem while searching for 18th century poetry to bring in to Lit class. I suppose what really caught my eye was that this poem exactly mirrored my mood of the month...isn't interesting what you randomly find which fits you so well? Anyhow, on with the poem!!


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 my 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.