Memorizing another poem: The Sorrow of Love by William Butler Yeats

The Sorrow of Love By William Butler Yeats

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,

The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,

And all that famous harmony of leaves,

Had blotted out man's image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips

And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,

Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships

And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;

Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,

A climbing moon upon an empty sky,

And all that lamentation of the leaves,

Could but compose man's image and his cry.

Epiphany! Wormtail vs. Wormwood

I started The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis today and I realized that J.K. Rowling got her name for a character from The Screwtape Letters which got its name from The Bible. I feel like Sherlock Holmes! Haha, except it is probably a known fact to every intellectual but still I feel pretty proud(flaw). The word Wormwood first appears in the book of Revelations in the Bible: Rev 8:10-11 "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." In the Screwtape Letters, Wormwood is the minion of the devil. The story is a collection of letters written from the devil (screwtape) to Wormwood, telling him how to keep man away from God. (It is absolutely amazing but I'll go into detail about that later)  The book was published in 1942. In Harry potter, voldemort has a right hand man named wormwood. Voldemort is obviously very much like the devil.
Many people think that the harrry potter series is evil and sacrilegious, but there are many Christian connections. Now, I do know that Rowling isn't a Christian and didn't intend for this to be a spirtitual guide, but there are many similarites.

All the Pretty Horses

Horses are such beautiful imagery and even the word gives the title a melodious ring to it.
I finished All the pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. 
All the Pretty Horses is a western but it is also modern and therefore it has a contemporary twist. John Grady Cole has many qualities of a cowboy; the first is that he rides a horse into the dangers of adventure.  He breaks away from the civilization factor, where everything is good, and right, and moral in order to step into the untamed wilderness. In this quest, he becomes tainted when he has to break the law in order to do what is right overall. The usual western hero sacrifices himself for civilization and that’s where the Christ figure comes in and the reason many people do not think it is a coincidence that the protagonist’s initials are J.C.  Because there seems to be no wilderness left in America, he is forced to travel to the wide and empty ranches of Mexico. Secondly, he has an amazing ability to beautifully break horses in a short time. On only his first day on the La Purisma ranch, he broke almost all their wild horses, gaining the utmost respect from all the other characters.  Also, there is always a female that the protagonist wins over with his masculine, rough, violence and also his mysterious power of charisma.  The female character is usually a damsel in distress and in this novel Alejandra is in distress, although it’s emotional instead of physical. Alejandra is trapped in a world that’s been caged by her father and aunt Alfonsa. John Grady Cole is not able to save her from this world, and consequently put her in his world, but he does make her fall in love with him. This could be looked at as a failure instead of half success because he made her caged world even worse. Before, she was discontented in her entrapment, but now she is miserable because John Grady Cole gave her a taste of freedom. He stole her love and not her cage and therefore she will live in a world without him. Her depression has been heightened because she went from no feeling to an awful state of being.

 One thing that I thought was interesting it it was when a character discussed the fact that in history there are no control groups. "There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was." This came from an old lady named Alfonsa, who had a lot of reasoning that all came out to be really not that complicated and thats why it was complicated, because it wasnt complicated at all. But she is the reason for the love plot in this story. It was pretty good, definitely cormac mccarthy style.

Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,

Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.

In the great hour of destiny they stand,

Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.

Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win

Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.

Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin

They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,

And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,

Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,

And mocked by hopeless longing to regain

Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,

And going to the office in the train.