Boethius
(+-480 A.D.-524)
'This was the man who once was free
To climb the sky with zeal devout
To contemplate the crimson sun,
The frozen fairness of the moon'
"But men have a way of getting lost sometimes,
When she saw that it was not that I would not speak, but that, dumbstruck, I could not, she gently laid her hand on my breast and said, 'It is nothing serious, only a touch of amnesia that he is suffering, the common disease of deluded minds. He has forgotten for awhile who he is, but he will soon remember once he has recognized me. To make it easier for him I will wipe a little of the blinding cloud of worldly concern from his eyes.'
As she spoke she gathered her dress into a fold and wiped from my eyes the tears that filled them.
"In these days when darkness falls early,
So sinks the mind in deep despair
because we live on a damn slippery planet.
LOVE LOST
As the years unfurl.
One day he crossed some line and he was too much in this world,
But I guess it doesn't matter anymore."
Don Henley
"But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!"
William Butler Yeats
'But it is the time for healing, not lamenting,' she went on. Then, fixing her eyes intently upon me, she said, 'You are the man, are you not, who was brought up on the milk of my learning and fed on my own food until you reached maturity? I gave you arms to protect you and keep your strength unimpaired, but you threw them away. Surely you recognize me? And yet you do not speak. Is it shame or is it astonishment that keeps you silent? I should prefer it to be shame, but I see that it is not.'
Boethius
The Consolations of Philosophy
"God help a man who doesn't know what he believes in."
Bruce Springstein
And people rush home to the ones they love,
You better take a fool's advice
And take care of love.
Because one day they're here,
And the next day they're gone..."
Don Henley
And sight grows dim; when storms of life
Blow surging up the weight of care,
It banishes its inward light
And turns in trust to the dark without.
This was the man who once was free
To climb the sky with zeal devout
To contemplate the crimson sun,
The frozen fairness of the moon -
Astronomer once used in joy
To comprehend and to commune
With planets on their wandering ways.
This man, this man sought out the source
Of storms that roar and rouse the seas;
The spirit that rotates the world,
The cause that translocates the sun
From shining East to watery West;
He sought the reason why spring hours
Are mild with flowers manifest,
And who enriched with swelling grapes
Ripe autumn at the full of year.
Now see that mind that searched and made
All Nature's hidden secrets clear
Lie prostrate prisoner of night.
His neck bends low in shackles thrust,
And he is forced beneath the weight
To contemplate - the lowly dust.
The Consolations of Philosophy
