I am not resigned....

After a while you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and

company doesn't mean security.

And you being to learn that kisses aren't contracts

and presents aren't promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats with your head

up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans.

After a while you learn that even sunshine hurts

if you get too much.

So plant your own garden and decorate you own soul,

instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure...

That you really are strong,

And you really do have worth.

Dirge without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

So it is and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go,

The wise and the lovely.

Crowned.

With lilies and laurels they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.

Be one with the dull, indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains, -- but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, --

They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled

Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom.

I know. But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Quietly they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Gently they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

"My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time.

These memories, which are my life -- for we possess nothing certainly except the past -- were always with me...

These memories are the memorials and pledges of the vital hours of a lifetime. These hours of afflatus in the human spirit, the springs of art, are, in their mystery, akin to the epochs of history, when a race which for centuries has lived content, unknown, behind its own frontiers, digging, eating, sleeping, begetting, doing what was requisite for survival and nothing else, will, for a generation or two, stupefy the world; commit all manners of crime, perhaps; follow the wildest chimeras, go down in the end of agony, but leave behind a record of new heights scaled and new rewards won for all mankind; the vision fades, the soul sickens, and the routine of survival starts again.

The human soul enjoys these rare, classic periods, but apart from them, we are seldom single or unique; we keep company in this world with a hoard of abstractions and reflections and counterfeits of ourselves --- the sensual man, the economic man, the man of reason, the beast, the machine and the sleep-walker, and heaven knows what besides, all in our own image, indistinguishable from ourselves to the outward eye. We get born along, out of sight in the press, unresisting, til we get the chance to drop behind unnoticed, or to dodge down a side street, pause, breathe freely and take our bearings, or to push ahead, outdistance our shadows, lead them a dance, so that when at length they catch up with us, they look at one another askance, knowing we have a secret we shall never share."

~Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited