On Summer Holidays

Prometheus Bound, by Jacob Jordaens. Preserved for posterity for its lesson in tasteful foot placement. 

There is something inexplicably oppressive which surrounds a surfeit of free time. I have mentioned this in previous posts and therefore will mention it again. If I annoy somebody in doing so then I can at least claim that my summer was not wasted in its entirety. A tiny worm of achievement shall cling to my soul and I shall nurture it until it becomes a dinghy on which I can sail to some remote shore. This achieved, I will found an ice cream shop and sell dinghy-flavoured ice cream until I have the necessary funds to invest in more conventional, fruit-based varieties. I've got it all planned.

My use of the word 'inexplicable' in the paragraph above was undoubtedly fatuity on my part, for I am about to attempt to explicate the thing to which I ascribed the term. Therefore I have already undermined the very raison d'être of the whole enterprise. In sooth, I think the oppression I mention is both explicable and inexplicable. Inexplicably. Explicable because there are elements to it which are very obvious, but inexplicable because there is still something counterintuitive about the idea, and besides my argument does not wholly explain the phenomenon.

First, and I think most crucially, we are quite mercifully constructed so as to view the idea of immortality with absolute scorn. It is so abhorrent because it exploits many of man's worst fears - the fear of boredom, and more importantly the fear of being bound by mental illness in the mind. Immortality is incarceration in one's own form, a kind of cage from which escape is impossible. In such a state the soul would be eternally garrotted by the senses, anguished by the sight of that which is allowed the repose that one is so unceasingly denied. The very liberation immortality seems to grant would corrode one's will to live, a kind of paradoxical torment which irony would taint everything. It may sound ridiculous to compare this with a summer holiday, but I believe any huge expanse of time inevitably begins to induce the kind of anxiety and dread that the mere suggestion of immortality might beget. I currently feel like Prometheus, or Sisyphus (without the palliative sense of occupation), or Ixion, or Tantalus bound in the pit. A kind of immobility is generated by the limitless possibilities of this ludicrously generous space which I have been afforded. This is the sort of monitory tale told to the ancient Greeks as if to establish knowledge of the very worst kind of despair in their minds. The same is done as a sort of obedience mechanism in the monotheistic religions too. You can almost imagine someone writing these edicts: 'If you disobey my divine right to leadership then you will be punished for a week. Hmm. No, that's rubbish. A whole month! What dread! I giggle at the thought! But I suppose some might enjoy a month's absence from work. Very well, you will be punished forever! Muahaha!' I do not think it unfair to say this could equally have come from the lips of the university administrators under whose hegemony I have been sanctioned to this punishment.

Furthermore, the idea of the summer holiday bears the insistence that I must enjoy myself, which sentiment I naturally reject at its fundament but, more gross still, the further insistence that I shall enjoy myself for precisely the period of time to which I have been so mercifully been allowed access. Then, at the bidding of some ghastly bureaucrats, I will pack up my trinkets and make my way back to the shed of abjection that is university. If it was not obvious, the thing I despise most in this world is being told what to do. I am not sure this is at all unique, but certainly most people tolerate a life of servitude without even an intimation of contempt for the convention. I will not register my approval for such a system. It is why I instinctively despise political conservatism - to me it is the abnegation of free choice, the abnegation of personality. It assumes people are too feeble, too timorous, too untrustworthy to determine their own fates. I say again - this is the abnegation of everything worth pursuing in life. A seething vengeance stirs in me when I hear David Cameron limiting access to pornography, or stymieing the movements of offensive pastry goods; perhaps he assumed the two were being used in tandem in buttery orgies around the nation.

I realise that was perhaps unrelated. I will in future keep my pastry dogma to myself. Moving onwards through this morass of nonsense, I believe an excess of spare time exposes something unpleasant within us, as if the personality which tires of free time is deficient in some way. 'If you are bored,' I seem to keep thinking, 'then you must be boring.' I actually do believe this has some credibility, but at the same time even the most interesting figures would become bored with no stimulus whatever. I think my own personal circumstances must also be taken into account - I would be having a much more pleasant time were I to be left alone for four months, with the odd excursion into the real world. As it is, begirt with familial censoriousness, I am constrained to a skeleton staff in the enjoyment department. This is probably a far greater factor than I acknowledge in this piece. Such an idea is a fairly Blakean one. It is probably not so inimical to the more social among us, but I do often feel I have been retarded by the family system; this is yet another reason I despise conservatism, but I won't expatiate this time. The family is a strange arrangement when one devotes a small amount of thought to it, its members bearing perhaps no resemblance to one another, whilst accepting the task of living together as if being the best of friends. I do not say it is harmful overall, but it certainly has its drawbacks. One of these is an undying tension which threatens to homogenise everything in its path.

Lastly, as a politician would probably say, there is no 'mandate' for the gratuitous length of this hell. Four months is naturally liable to cloy the senses - I should much rather have lectures 3 days per week for a year than 5 days per week for 8 months. I can understand why all educational institutions might synchronise their timetables, sort of like edificial menstrual cycles. Perhaps a poor analogy. What I cannot understand is why several months is the chosen span. I imagine I would be complaining still more plangently if I had been given two weeks instead, but such is the power of my indecision. I do not know what length of time I might be satisfied with. A month perhaps. Part of the sad irony of giving the young huge amounts of free time is that they are usually the least equipped to make use of it - I would travel to Indonesia or Malaysia as is so fashionable now, but I would have to rob a bank or, worse still, find a job, and this would defeat the principle of having a holiday to begin with. The whole thing is bizarre. This holiday will end eventually, but until then I shall remain Tithonus, gazing with despair on the beauty that flits before my eyes.

Any Scrap Metaaal - A Lament

I was woken up today (and when I say today, I really mean today in my personal time zone, an amorphous mass of time which is liable to change at a moment's notice. Its inhabitants are deranged in commensurate measure) by something quite bizarre. Bizarre when compared with convention, that is, for I never have encountered such a thing before. I knew it existed, but I had not anticipated it taking quite this form.

Asleep at some indeterminate hour, though it was probably mid-afternoon so I have little right to complain, a horrendous noise came hurtling down the street beside my house. 'Scrap metaaaaal, any scrap metaaaaaaaal,' was the pollution which gainsaid my double-glazed windows and kicked me in the face. I very naively assumed I could leave my window ajar without being solicited to engage in some sort of shady metal exchange. This assumption, I was forced to concede, was overly wishful.

I did not bother to open my curtains and examine this passing cacophony, because I was only semi-conscious and, besides, I did not wish to suggest interest. Instead I made another assumption, this time that some sort of van was driving along the streets, and a man with a megaphone was blasting his importunate and frankly unenjoyable pronouncements through every unwitting window he could find. Being so remiss in my duty of inspection, it may well be the case that a colossal snail was tearing its way through the tarmac like a cruise liner ploughing through a landfill site, searching desperately for scrap metal with which it might slake its slimy appetite. If this is the case then I am merely grateful that my possessions were not consumed in the endeavour, but I fear it is the van which supplants the snail in reality. A metaphor for all conservationists to gather round.

The tone of this beseechment was particularly interesting. It took an almost parabolic progression, beginning slowly and stably and tailing off to absolute madness. 'Scrap metaaaal, anyuh scurrap metaaaayayayayl.' It was as if embellishment was necessary in order to attract business, which would not be untrue. I can imagine this stratagem being hugely effective. 'Can you hear that, dear? It sounds to me like an unorthodox speech pattern. Let's flog the toaster.'

The shouting man also decided to occasionally add in: 'Gold, silver, iron, anything,' as if people are sat in their living rooms, scratching at the wallpaper to lick the damp walls, bemoaning their excess scrap gold. 'Whatever shall we do with this gold crisp wrapper?' 'Well, it's scrap, isn't it. Belongs in the bin.' The words scrap metal and gold are as incompatible as fine dining and Little Chef (I was pleased to read that Little Chef has been sold to an overseas buyer. Unfortunately they will not be exporting the restaurants out of the country.) Personally, I have just had to move four scrap ingots of gold to find somewhere to place my laptop. We keep the scrap Fabergé eggs in the loft.

I only wish I had gazed out of my window, onto the beast. Where was this scrap metal being stored? Was it being placed neatly away in an almost librarian fashion? Was it being sniffed by a bespectacled man and placed pruriently beneath the driver's seat? Or was it perhaps being pinioned to the vehicle, in a seeming emulation of the assassin bug? Alas, I ask questions which I cannot answer. My philosophy is too great for my analytic faculties. There is no empirical evidence to pore over, and I can only assume the most likely reality to be true - a giant snail was indeed eating each article in succession.

And so now I come to the serious part of this post. I had intended for this to be perhaps a paragraph or two, but give me an infinitely extending box in which to place text and you will regret your generosity. The serious point is that I think this whole occurrence is reflective of the current desperation of this country. Never before have I been entreated to engage in the sale of metallic bibelots, and this is probably because I have spent most of my life in a country with a prospering economy. Well, no longer is this the case, and this is where the goblin trinket-hoarders enter. The whole experience reminded me of some post-apocalyptic movie, and I now have a fair idea of what the next total war might be like - government vehicles humming through the streets, emitting strange orders such as: 'Place all non-regulation appliances in the hold immediately. Hey, you, we can see that typewriter. Oi, look at that one there, making a run for it with a steel dumpling steamer! Shoot him!' This is the generation in which we can proudly declare that the ice cream van, symbol of prosperity, has been replaced by these steel cages filled with family possessions. Scrap family possessions, the forbidding man might say. All scrap.

On Love by Percy Bysshe Shelley

A marvellous fragment from Shelley. My comments on it can probably be inferred merely by my recommendation. He wrote many brilliant, intense pieces like this. A Defence of Poetry contains some of my favourite descriptions of the role of poets, but that is far too long to put here. This piece, though, burgeons and swells and reaches an almost ungovernable level of lyricism.

'What is Love? Ask him who lives what is life; ask him who adores what is God.

I know not the internal constitution of other men, nor even of thine whom I now address. I see that in some external attributes they resemble me, but when, misled by that appearance, I have thought to appeal to something in common and unburthen my inmost soul to them, I have found my language misunderstood, like one in a distant and savage land. The more opportunities they have afforded me for experience, the wider has appeared the interval between us, and to a greater distance have the points of sympathy been withdrawn. With a spirit ill-fitted to sustain such proof, trembling and feeble through its tenderness, I have everywhere sought, and have found only repulse and disappointment.

Thou demandest what is Love. It is that powerful attraction towards all we conceive, or fear, or hope beyond ourselves, when we find within our own thoughts the chasm of an insufficient void, and seek to awaken in all things that are, a community with what we experience within ourselves. If we reason we would be understood; if we imagine we would that the airy children of our brain were born anew within another's; if we feel we would that another's nerves should vibrate to our own, that the beams of their eyes should kindle at once and mix and melt into our own; that lips of motionless ice should not reply to lips quivering and burning with the heart's best blood:--this is Love. This is the bond and the sanction which connects not only man with man, but with every thing which exists. We are born into the world, and there is something within us, which from the instant that we live, more and more thirsts after its likeness. It is probably in correspondence with this law that the infant drains milk from the bosom of its mother; this propensity develops itself with the development of our nature. We dimly see within our intellectual nature, a miniature as it were of our entire self, yet deprived of all that we condemn or despise, the ideal prototype of every thing excellent and lovely that we are capable of conceiving as belonging to the nature of man. Not only the portrait of our external being, but an assemblage of the minutest particles of which our nature is composed*: a mirror whose surface reflects only the forms of purity and brightness: a soul within our own soul that describes a circle around its proper Paradise, which pain and sorrow and evil dare not overleap. To this we eagerly refer all sensations, thirsting that they should resemble and correspond with it. The discovery of its antitype; the meeting with an understanding capaple of clearly estimating our own; an imagination which should enter into and seize upon the subtle and delicatce peculiarities which we have delighted to cherish and unfold in secret, with a frame, whose nerves, like the chords of two exquisite lyres, strung to the accompaniment of one delightful voice, vibrate with the vibrations of our own; and a combination of all these in such proportion as the type within demands: this is the invisible and unattainable point to which Love tends; and to attain which, it urges forth the powers of man to arrest the faintest shadow of that, without the possession of which, there is no rest nor respite to the heart over which it rules. Hence in solitude, or that deserted state when we are surrounded by human beings and yet they sympathize not with us, we love the flowers, the grass, the waters, and the sky. In the motion of the very leaves of spring, in the blue air, there is then found a secret correspondence with our heart. There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul awaken the spirits to dance of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you alone. Sterne says that if he were in a desert he would love some cypress. So soon as this want or power is dead, man becomes a living sepulchre of himself, and what yet survives is the mere husk of what once he was.

* These words are ineffectual and metaphorical. Most words are so,--no help!'

The Definition of Love by Andrew Marvell

My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble hope could ne'er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed;
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel),
Not by themselves to be embraced,

Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear.
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramp'd into a planisphere.

As lines, so love's oblique, may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.

I am more aware than ever that the poems housed in this blog emphatically do not require my commentary, nor anyone else's, for they speak for themselves with a fluency even the greatest prose cannot hope to emulate. Therefore I do it only for enjoyment, the very act of writing itself. The praxis of hitting buttons in an order such as to produce something slightly intelligible. It's sort of like Guitar Hero in that respect, though one can achieve a perfect score in Guitar Hero which is unattainable in writing, the closest being a poem like the one above. This is probably due to the parameters poetry imposes - there is always the temptation in prose to add another word to a sentence, but poetry rewards the parsimonious more generously. I find it fascinating that this economy does not produce something spartan and dull, not in the right hands at least. Conversely, by cutting out all the gratuities you create a finer distillation of beauty than if you'd tried to say more. Perhaps this should not be unexpected. 

Part of me simply wants to say 'This poem is brilliant because... just look at it!' This would be quite acceptable if I was writing of a painting, but poetry for some reason seems to be seen as more complex than that. To me the words in a poem such as this are expensive paints - they are beautiful in their own way but are most effective when used in tandem. The word 'love' is fine, but nobody would want to see a whole canvas of it. This analogy is not recognised too often, probably because language too often is an exercise in pragmatism. If we had to use paint to order at a restaurant, we might soon tire of seeing paintings. The only way to overcome this would be to use unnecessarily extravagant strokes for the heck of it. This is all poetry is. 

This poem, then, is not deficient in the beauty department. 'Magnanimous Despair alone' is a fantastic, paradoxical line. 'Upon Impossibility', 'Their union would her ruin be', 'And her tyrannic power depose' are other such examples. And of course, like art, we can draw conclusions from the work too. Words are, after all, only symbols. This is a lament for the incompatibility of love and eternity. This is similar to the sentiment expressed in To His Coy Mistress, a poem which still makes me gasp with its grace, in which the poetic voice longs for 'world enough and time' in which to express his love. That poem is rather more sanguine than this one, however. He writes:

'Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.'

This is in clear contrast to the undercurrent of resignation in this poem. There is no suggestion that their love can 'never meet'. But both poems are exquisite, being effectively the two ways of looking at the same reality.

Pop Satire - Some Ordure Courtesy of Justin Timberlake

This may seem horrendously out of place on this blog, and that is because it probably is. Fortunately, I do not happen to care. My mother likes to party quite violently and had this song playing on the television before I pummelled her to unconsciousness with a  jar of jam and turned the damned thing off (the TV, not the jam). I despise pop music with the enthusiasm of all my organs and experienced a kind of orgasmic thrill as I banished Justin Timberlake's illiterate whinings to another dimension.

The point of all this, though, is that I want to comment on the lyrics of this dreadful song. The red lyrics below are obviously mine, but they are supposed to be Justin Timberlake's thoughts. These profound musings of his allow me a great mode of providing satire on shitey pop music, which is to say on pop music. I reject the sentiments that tend to animate the genre and I feel this comes across in my additions.

Oh, and I realise this is not a recent song at all, but to someone who listens to practically nothing from this century this song is in pre-production.

 My Love 

My Bitch

If I wrote you a symphony,

It would probably be shit, so this will have to do
Just to say how much you mean to me (what would you do?)

Free sex was a big factor but I could hardly cite that
If I told you you were beautiful

I'd be straining the truth but I believe the risk may be worth taking
Would you date me on the regular (tell me, would you?)

Oh I do hope you'll grant me access to your orifices after I tell you you're sexually attractive
Well, baby I've been around the world

Sorry, that's showing off
But I ain't seen myself another girl (like you)

hahahaha she'll probably fall for this
This ring here represents my heart

OK I did briefly vomit but it missed these lyrics so she won't know
But there's just one thing I need from you (say "I do")
Here's a hint, it begins with 'blowjob'

[Chorus:]
Yeah, because

Grant me leave to explain
I can see us holding hands

Our digits shall be fused in a simulation of intercourse
Walking on the beach, our toes in the sand

Our toes attached to our feet, not just sat in the sand. OK, perhaps poor wording. I won't remove your toes
I can see us on the countryside

Just sat atop it really
Sitting on the grass, laying side by side

Sitting and laying simultaneously, such is the power of being a millionaire
You could be my baby, let me make you my lady

Honestly, you really could
Girl, you amaze me

Your breasts are remarkable

Ain't gotta do nothing crazy

EXCEPT ANAL
See, all I want you to do is be my love

AND ANAL
(So don't give away) My love

Even though 'love is something if you give it away'
(So don't give away) My love

Even though 'love is something if you give it away'
(So don't give away) Ain't another woman that can take your spot, my love

Excepting the ones I penetrated on my last tour
(So don't give away) My love

Even though 'love is something if you give it away'
(So don't give away) My love

I couldn't think of any different words
(So don't give away) Ain't another woman that can take your spot, my love
Last time I repeat myself, promise
Ooooh, girl

Ooooh, bitch
My love

I know I'm not even going out with you yet, bit weird. Sorry
My love
I lied about the repetition. Sorry again

Now, if I wrote you a love note

It would probably be shit, so this will have to do
And made you smile with every word I wrote (what would you do?)

Perhaps exaggerating my writing faculties somewhat, I confess

Would that make you want to change your scene

You're so fat you're basically a stage. Your clothes are topographical features which must be changed by stage crew
And wanna be the one on my team (tell me, would you?)

That way you can make sure I'm not batting for the other team, as it were
See, what's the point of waiting anymore?

I admit this is a bit rapey but you know what I mean
Cause girl I've never been more sure (that baby, it's you)

I'm certain. It is you. I would know that gut anywhere
This ring here represents my heart

It's circular and repeats the same shit lines all the time
And everything that you've been waiting for (just say "I do")

You do like anal, right?

[Chorus:]
This repetition will make it look like I've written more than I have, like one does at primary school

[T.I.'s rap:]
Alright it's time to get it JT

No, I don't know who JT is either, but apparently he's getting it
I don't know why she hesitates for man

You should submit yourself to me instantly, you insolent bimbo
Shorty, cool as a fan

Of the cooling type. Sorry, didn't make that clear. Also I'm sorry to bring your height into things
On the new once again

We're near the end of the song, I'll just put random words now
But, still has fan from Peru to Japan

Yep. Still working
Listen baby, I don't wanna ruin your plan

That would be rude
If you got a man, try to lose him if you can

But do please try to abandon your entire life for me
Cause the girls worldwide throw their hands up high

I suppose they must do at some point
When they wanna come kick it wit a stand up guy

I do comedy on occasion
(Trust me) You don't really wanna let the chance go by

I am LOADED

'cause you ain't been seen wit a man so fly

My grandmother was technically only a mosquito but I embellish it
Baby friends so fly I can go fly

...yeah
Private, cause I handle my B.I.

Boobs and Intercourse
They call me candle guy, simply because I am on fire

And my member shrinks throughout the night
I hate to have to cancel my vacation so you can't deny

Look, I'm really making the effort here. Butlins are useless at refunds so it's probably a dead loss
I'm patient, but I ain't gonna try

If this poem doesn't win you over then it's not possible
You don't come, I ain't gonna die

Your absence grants me immortality. I suppose like a horcrux really
Hold up, what you mean, you can't go why?

You cannot surrender your being to my immense wealth? What is this?
Me and your boyfriend we ain't no tie

I will sodomise him if that is what it takes
You say you wanna kick it when I ain't so high?

I can only write well when I'm high, but I'm sure you agree the results are well worth it
Well, baby it's obvious that I ain't your guy

I suppose I'd better give up, this is boring
Ain't gon' lie, I feel your space

I didn't mean your vagina but that would be nice too
But forget your face, I swear I will

Forget it, you don't need it
St. Bart, St. Bulla anywhere I chill

I will get a sainthood if I have to kill someone
Just bring wit me a pair, I will

I adore wit in girls

[Chorus:]
This looks insubstantial but I can't be bothered to write more. Oh I'll put another chorus in.

To Inez by Lord Byron

Probably minutes after doing something of vague illegality

Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,
Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

And dost thou ask what secret woe
I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know
A pang even thou must fail to soothe?

It is not love, it is not hate,
Nor low Ambition's honours lost,
That bids me loathe my present state,
And fly from all I prized the most:

It is that weariness which springs
From all I meet, or hear, or see:
To me no pleasure Beauty brings;
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom
The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,
That will not look beyond the tomb,
But cannot hope for rest before.

What exile from himself can flee?
To zones, though more and more remote,
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life--the demon Thought.

Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
And taste of all that I forsake:
Oh! may they still of transport dream,
And ne'er, at least like me, awake!

Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst;
And all my solace is to know,
Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.

What is that worst? Nay, do not ask -
In pity from the search forbear:
Smile on--nor venture to unmask
Man's heart, and view the hell that's there.

Byron appears to be getting a disproportionate share of my attention on this blog but I don't much mind. Not when it allows me to post a surfeit of pieces like this, at least. I am fast starting to believe that he may be the best English poet, and certainly of the past 200 years, much though I love Poe and Shelley and Keats and all the rest. Before that, though, I think the contenders are Shakespeare and Milton, who are both nonpareils in their own unique ways. It's impossible and fruitless to attempt to compare them. But Byron was one of those very rare figures, like Oscar Wilde, who seemed so ahead of their time, and our time for that matter. There was such an understanding of what it was to be human - the absurdity, the folly, the rare moments of splendour that sanctify the endeavour. If anything, we have made a regression from the 1800s in terms of exploration of the human condition. Gone are the days of poems like this - nowadays it is enough to write about eating at Starbucks, or doing a shit, or both simultaneously, I can't stop you. All this wrought under the anaemic guise of what they call 'free verse', a rather deceptive moniker. It is not free poetry at all - it is the most stilted, constipated type of poetry imaginable. It is bound by its own indolence, poetry that has lost the will to live, and this is not freedom. And personally I think it is generous to confer the name 'poetry' on what is a collection of prose fragments. To me, metre is the heart of poetry. It is the sway and cadence of each line that generates the majesty required for the title 'poetry'. Poe wrote in The Poetic Principle that 'rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected- is so vitally important an adjunct that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality.' So there.

I'm not quite sure why, but the last line of this poem rather disarmed me. I just somehow was not expecting that choice of words, but this is conducive rather than deleterious to the general effect. Additionally, the rhythm is so perfect. It is a belief I expect I shall forever stand by that poetry in metre has far more power to establish some imperium over the soul, and the final line of this poem exploits metre with ruinous impact (in a good way of course). It reminds me of the final line of Poe's Alone, 'Of a demon in my view,' which is prefaced by such momentum that the the curtness of the ending is all the more potent.

This poem is so clearly Romantic, its subject being that kind of solitary woe you might associate with the Byronic hero. People would often say of Byron that he looked at times rapt in another dimension, as if considering some exclusive misery. Indeed, he probably was, but he did try to affect dissatisfaction too, to bolster his appearance as the Romantic ideal - pale, thin, mysterious and haunted.

Overall, then, and indeed by any specifics, a cracking poem, Gromit. I can't speak for anyone else but I have a huge sympathy with what Byron writes here, and that's probably why I praise the piece so much. I should mention that it's part of Canto I of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which is well worth a read. Until our next convocation.