Rattling around in old closets
May. 20th, 2007 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonI've been rattling around in old writing/junk files and found this excerpt. Some of you may remember it from a memorable X-Files in which Mulder may have met up with someone from a past life...
Paracelsus by Robert Browning
(excerpted from Part I, 591-606)
For me, I estimate their works and them
So rightly, that at times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages' way,
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by death,
That life was blotted out—not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again.
1835
That's where they cut if for the episode, but here's what the rest of that stanza says:
The goal in sight again. All which, indeed,
Is foolish, and only means--the flesh I wear,
The earth I tread, are not more clear to me
Than my belief, explained to you or no.
(BTW, Jussi Björling, who died in the early sixties, was an awesome tenor. Largely forgotten now, and I discovered him by accident myself. Such is the ephemera of performance art. Or art in general, I guess, but especially performance art. )
Paracelsus by Robert Browning
(excerpted from Part I, 591-606)
For me, I estimate their works and them
So rightly, that at times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages' way,
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by death,
That life was blotted out—not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again.
1835
That's where they cut if for the episode, but here's what the rest of that stanza says:
The goal in sight again. All which, indeed,
Is foolish, and only means--the flesh I wear,
The earth I tread, are not more clear to me
Than my belief, explained to you or no.
(BTW, Jussi Björling, who died in the early sixties, was an awesome tenor. Largely forgotten now, and I discovered him by accident myself. Such is the ephemera of performance art. Or art in general, I guess, but especially performance art. )
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