Fabrizio's Mistresses by Marcel Proust

Fabrizio's mistress was intelligent and beautiful; he could not get over it. "She shouldn't understand herself!" he groaned. "Her beauty is spoiled by her intelligence. Could I still smitten by the Mona Lisa whenever I looked at her if I also had to hear a discourse by even a remarkable critic?"

He left her and took another mistress, who was beautiful and mindless. But her inexorable want of tact contantly prevented him from enjoying her charm. Moreover she aspired to intelligence, read a great deal, became a bluestocking, and was as intellectual as his first mistress, but with less ease and with ridiculous clumsiness. He asked her to keep silent; but even when she held her tongue, her beauty cruelly reflected her stupidity. Finally he met a woman who revealed her intelligence purely in amore subtle grace, who was content with just living and never dissipated the enchanting mystery of her nature in overly specific conversations. She was gentle, like graceful and agile animals with deep eyes, and she disturbed you like the morning's vague and agonizing memory of your dreams. But she did not bother to do for him what his other two mistresses had done: she did not love him.

from Fragments of Commedia Dell'Arte

Sunrise by Charles Swinburne

If the wind and the sunlight of April and August had
mingled the past and hereafter
In a single adorable season whose life were a rapture
of love and laughter,
And the blithest of singers were back with a song; if
again from his tomb as from prison,
If again from the night or the twilight of age Aristophanes
had arisen,
With the gold-feathered wings of a bird that were
also a god upon earth at this shoulders,
And the gold-flowing laugh of the manhood of old at
his lips, for a joy to beholders,
He alone unrebuked of presumption were able to set
to some adequate measure
The delight of our eyes in the dawn that restores
them the sun of their sense and the pleasure.
For the days of the darkness of spirit are over for all of
us here, and the season
When desire was a longing, and absense a thorn, and
rejoicing a word without reason.
For the roof overhead of the pines is astir with delight
as of jubilant voices,
And the floor underfoot of the bracken and heather
alive as a heart that rejoices.
For the house that ws childless awhile, and the light
of it darkened, the pulse of it dwindled,
Rings radiant again with a child's bright feet, with
the light of his face is rekindled.
And the ways of the meadows that knew him, the
sweep of the down that sky's belt closes,
Grow gladder at heart than the soft wind made them
whos feet were but fragment with roses
Though the fall of the year be upon us, who trusted
in June and by June were defrauded,
And the summer that brought us not back the desire
of our eyes be gone hence unapplauded.
For July came joyless among us, and August went
out from us arid and sterile,
And the hope of our hearts, as it seemed, than a thought
which regret had not heart to remember,
Till four dark monthes over past were atone for, and
summer began in September.
Hark, April again as a bird in the house with child's
voice hither and thither:
See, May in the garden again with a child's face
cheering the woods ere they wither.
June laughs in the light of his eyes, and July on the
sunbright cheeks of him slumbers,
And August glows in a smile more sweet than the
cadence fo gold-mouthed numbers.
In the morning the sight of him brightens the sun
and the noon with delight in him flushes,
And the silence fo nightfall is music about him as
soft as the sleep that it hushes.
We awake with a sense of a sunrise that is not a gift
of the sundawn's giving,
And a voice that salutes us is sweeter than all sounds
else in the world of the living,
And a presence that warms us is brighter than all in
the world of our visions beholden,
Though the dreams of our sleep were as those that
the light of a world without makes golden.
For the best that the best of us ever devised as a
likeness of heaven and its glory,
What was it of old, or what is it and will be for ever,
in song or in story,
Or in shape or in colour of carven or painted
resemblance, adored of all ages,
But a vision recorded of children alive in the pictures
of old or the pages?
Where children are not, heaven is not, and heaven if
they come not again shall be never:
But the face and the voice of a child are assurance of
heaven and its promise for ever.

Intro to the movie Daywatch

Why does the wind blow?
It wipes the tracks where we have passed
so that no one can tell whether we still exist.
Long ago when warriors of Light and Darkness clashed
on the Bridge of Justice and blood was spilled the
great Gesser's heart could not bear it and he stopped
the battle. But in due time, when the night is no longer
than the day a new Great One will come. The world
will be plunged into darkness and nothing can save it
except the chalk of Fate which is kept in an
impenetrable fortress. And all who come for it and
pass through the gates perish in its endless maze.
So it had always been... until Tamerlane came.

A Vision of Spring in Winter by Charles Swinburne

I

O tender time that love thinks long to see,

Sweet foot of spring that with her footfall sows

Late snowlike flowery leaving of the snows,

Be not too long irresolute to be;

O mother-month, where have they hidden thee?

Out of the pale time of the flowerless rose

I reach my heart out toward the springtime lands,

I stretch my spirit forth to the fair hours,

The purplest of the prime;

I lean my soul down over them, with hands

Made wide to take the ghostly growth of flowers;

I send my love back to the lovely time.

II

Where has the greenwood hid thy gracious head?

Veiled with what visions while the grey world grieves,

Or muffled with what shadows of green leaves,

What warm intangible green shadows spread

To sweeten the sweet twilight for thy bed?

What sleep enchants thee? what delight deceives?

Where the deep dreamlike dew before the dawn

Feels not the fingers of the sunlight yet

Its silver web unweave,

Thy footless ghost on some unfooted lawn

Whose air the unrisen sunbeams fear to fret

Lives a ghost's life of a daylong dawn and eve.

III

Sunrise it sees not, neither set of star,

Large nightfall, nor imperial plenilune,

Nor strong sweet shape of the full-breasted noon;

But where the silver-sandalled shadows are,

Too soft for arrows of the sun to mar,

Moves with the mild gait of an ungrown moon:

Hard overhead the half-lit crescent swims,

The tender-coloured night draws hardly breath,

The light is listening;

They watch the dawn of slender-shapen limbs,

Virginal, born again of doubtful death,

Chill foster-father of the weanling spring.

IV

As sweet desire of day before the day,

As dreams of love before the true love born,

From the outer edge of winter overworn

The ghost arisen of May before the May

Takes through dim air her unawakened way,

The gracious ghost of morning risen ere morn.

With little unblown breasts and child-eyed looks

Following , the very maid, the girl-child spring,

Lifts windward her bright brows,

Dips her light feet in warm and moving brooks,

And kindles with her own mouth's colouring

The fearful firstlings of the plumeless boughs.

V

I seek thee sleeping, and awhile I see,

Fair face that art not, how the maiden breath

Shall put at last the deadly days to death

And fill the fields and fire the woods with thee

And seaward hollows where my feet would be

When heaven shall hear the word that April saith

To change the cold heart of the weary time,

To stir and soften all the time to tears,

Tears joyfuller than mirth;

As even to May's clear height the young days climb

With feet no swifter than those fair first years

Whose flowers revive not with thy flowers on earth.

VI

I would not bid thee, though I might, give back

One good thing youth has given and borne away;

I crave not any comfort of the day

That is not, nor on time's retrodden track

Would turn to meet the white-robed hours or black

That long since left me on their mortal way;

Nor light nor love that has been, nor the breath

That comes with morning from the sun to be

And sets light hope on fire;

No fruit, no flower thought once too fair for death,

No flower nor hour once fallen from life's green tree,

No leaf once plucked or once fulfilled desire.

VII

The morning song beneath the stars that fled

With twilight through the moonless mountain air,

While youth with burning lips and wreathless hair

Sang toward the sun that was to crown his head,

Rising; the hopes that triumphed and fell dead

The sweet swift eyes and songs of hours that were;

These may'st thou not give back for ever; these,

As at the sea's heart all her wrecks lie waste,

Lie deeper than the sea;

But flowers thou may'st, and winds, and hours of ease,

And all its April to the would thou may'st

Give back, and half my April back to me.

The Dance Partner

She put her hand into his and led him to the dancefloor. He realized she was in front and bringing him along with her. His anxiety began to disappear. It was like a smile inside of him. When they reached an empty spot, she turned around and opened herself to him. Reaching forward with both arms she put her hand into his once again. His other moved along her arm, starting at her elbow and under; to the back of her shoulder. She first put her hand on his bicep and then moved it up farther to the side of his shoulder. He could tell she didn't know how to dance very well, so he looked her in the eye and smiled. Her anxiety began to disappear.

First, he dipped her to the left slightly and the stepped back and she followed. He slid his hand out from under her arm and then held both of her hands. They were soft and fleshy. He could only slightly sense the bones inside them. They weren't plump or loose, but like little bodies. They were her breasts and thighs and waist and neck... they rested in his hands awaiting whatever he wished to do next. She looked at him. Her eyes were dark and large, framed with strong cheekbones and brow. He was used to a more petite women in height, so being able to look at her face without looking down caused him to admire her subconsciously. Her beauty also made it easy.