Melody

Are there different kinds of the sublime? Because my Song of the Moment, the song that I've been listening to over and over lately, well, I still don't know all of the words. So silly question: is poetry really about the words? Essentially, poems need words, but the emotion that is brings out in you is what makes any piece a personal touchstone. I might have chosen my first touchstone, the dream-banter from Romeo and Juliet, because of the way it sounds in the Baz Lurhman movie. I understand Chris' touchstone, because sound, melody, rhythm can reach the sublime, maybe easier, than any words can. The right words can trigger those emotions, but music is almost easier because it requires no translation, it speakes directly to the sublime.
Some musc that are Touchstones:
Seven Year Ache, by Roseanne Cash
Panch and Lefty, by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggerd
"The poets tell how Pancho fell
And Lefty's living, in cheep motels
The deserts quiet, and Clevland's cold
So the story end's we're told
Pancho needs your prayers it's true
But save a few for Lefty too
He only did what he had to do
And now he's growing old"
And writing the words, I know that I can't possibly translate the real poetry that is in the quiver of Merle Haggerd's voice in addition to his words.

Also, the Classical Techno Remix of the matrix theme song...but I think I love it for the piano solo.

Clapton's Layla, for the music part, though, more than any lyrics.

What's in a name?

I guess Mathew Arnold's argument that poetry can replace religion doesn't seem very radical to me. It's logical, if passion for poetry can be logical (which I don't think it can. It's emotional). If I can generalize about the way in which the Hebrew Bible was meant to be read, it's a collection of stories. Some are instructive, some are allagorical, but some are just beautiful. I'm not religious, but I can appreciate the beautiful poetry of a culture.
My touchstone passages are those because I can't help but think of them, sometimes once a day. Or sometimes I forget about them for a long time, but every time I read them, whether it's the second time or the hundreth, I'm moved. I think that's what church is supposed to do for you, once a week or month or year you feel moved by your expereince there. I wouldn't know. But poetry moves me, the rhythm of words moves me, the cadence can be comforting.
Sometimes it's the words, other times it's just the idea of beauty or strenght that it creates.
Here's another one:
Kubla Khan, the first and last stanza

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A Stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to the sunless sea...

That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there
And all should cry Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes! His floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the mild of paradise

Yet Another Touchstone Passage

I'm not just trying to add up my blog posts, I swear. This assignment was exciting for me, because so many of these books are a part of me, of what I think, and I want to share it with Dr. Sexson and the class.
After taking Intro to Classical Lit. with Dr. Sexson, and hearing him recite the opening passage of Lolita to us, I had to go out and buy the book. I like the book, but I love the opening passage. And I still hear Dr. Sexson's voice reading it...

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tounge taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing fourfeet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was alsway Lolita."

Another Touchstone (#3)

From: The Great Gatsby

"And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown, world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picke out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And one fine morning--
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

I've read this novel several times, and the first time, I was pretty young and I didn't quite understand the didactic quality of the ending. But I liked it, it sounded nice. And as far as it's didacticism, that changes every time I read it, but no matter how old I am, I still love the ending passage.

Touchstone #2

The entire book of Peter Pan could be one of my touchstones, but I'll only select a few passages.

"She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner."

"Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is apunishment put on them for some thing they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder."

My Touchstone(s). #1

Yes, there are several. but I can't help it. As soon as I tried to think of poetry, or pieces of poetic prose, I thought of more. Here are some, and I'm sure that this list will be added to:

From Shakespeare's Rome and Juliet:
r: I dreamt a dream tonight
m: well so did I!
r: and what was yours?
m: that dreamers often lie
r: in bed asleep while they do dream things true
m: then I see queen mab hath been with you

Although it's been years, since my freshman year of high school, since I've read the play, and even though my copy is on my bookshelf in Colorado, I thought of this passage. It's memorized, actually. Which I'm pretty proud of considering my struggles with Idea of Order in Key West

Dover Beach by Mathew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.