Sunday, October 6, 2013

"That's why I hold with all I have..."


My muse, sometimes, asks me why, why I am your muse?

It is a question, when put on the spot, that can be hard to answer. The sea, I say, I cry. The moon, and books, and trains in magical lands. Stories of kings, and bears, and tigers, of pirates and boys who won't grow up. Latin, Greek, and languages long dead, I say. And love, my muse, love.

My muse asks me what is love, and when I answer, it is you, it is not enough.

But this, this is love:

BY WALT WHITMAN

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

So, Gentle Reader, when next my muse demands, perhaps I have an answer. It is the moon, and stars, and the sea. It is stories, and Latin, trains, and magic, and all these things. My muse will ask, what is love? Why me? And I will answer, it is you.

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