Interesting inspirations

            My detour today is a detour of reading material.

            Typically I read novels, or I try to push my way through the mythology and history books that I didn’t fully read in college, and once a month I devour the pages of National Geographic when it comes in the mail. The last time I read poetry, however, was during the spring semester of my senior year of college—a year and a half ago. Not too long ago, but it also isn’t very recent.

            But I was watching Bright Star a few nights ago, which is an amazing movie about the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne, and I realized I had forgotten in the last year or so just how much I love the Romantic poets. Fortunately I didn't pack away my copy of  The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period when I was boxing up my 16 boxes worth of books last summer, so I found Norton casually relaxing on my bookshelf.

            I’ve been flipping through the anthology these last few days, and I’ll occasionally stop to read when a title catches my eye. Sometimes the title is something I’ve read before, and I’ll find notes in the margins. Other times I find something I’ve never heard of, and I wonder why I didn’t pay attention during my first time reading through the book.

            I thought I’d share a poem with you today. In honor of Bright Star, and because I stumbled across this bit of poetry in my flippings through the Norton, here is some Keats for you to enjoy!

When I have fears that I may cease to be

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,

Before high piled books, in charactry,

Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;

When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the fairy power

Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

              I feel a sense of urgency when I read poems and stories written by poets and authors whose lives were ended when they were still young--whose imaginations might still have been full of ideas when they died.

              Is it strange that I feel inspired to sit down immediately and write after I've remembered the shortness of their lives? 

              If it inspires me, morbid though the inspiration may be, I think I'll just say thank you to the muses and accept the gift.  

              So for today I guess I'll say--Thank you Mr. Keats for being my bit of inspiration.