A Favorite

Since my mad-scientist-type professor forgot to e-mail the readings for today's class, I have a bit of spare time to write another post! Classes are going well. A recent fascinating read was an excerpt from Becoming Justice Blackmun. I became completely absorbed in learning about the relationships, expectations, and politics existing within the Supreme Court. This book will definitely be on my list of "books to read post-graduation." Actually, maybe I'll make that another list on this blog. I'm slowly getting the hang of this whole blogging thing...

Lastly, before I post another of my all-time favorite poems, new: this weekend we host a party of at least a dozen guests, all of whom will likely be hungry and thirsty for delicious food, beer, and Star Trek. Yes, we're throwing a party dedicated to the one of the nerdiest cult tv series' of all time. It should be very fun. I'm making a ton of different foods including vegan options, and will certainly post pictures by next week. But first, a great poem:

Under the Willows 

J.R. Lowell

This willow is as old to me as life;

And under it full often have I stretched,

Feeling the warm earth like a thing alive,

And gathering virtue in at every pore,

Till it possessed me wholly, and thought ceased,

Or was transfused in something to which thought

Is coarse, and dull of sense.  Myself was lost,

Gone from me like an ache; and what remained 

Became a part of the universal joy.

My soul went forth, and, mingling with the tree,

Danced in the leaves; or, floating on the cloud,

Saw its white double in the stream below;

Or else, sublimed to purer ecstasy,

Dilated in the broad blue over all.

I was the wind that dappled the lush grass,

The tide that crept with coolness to its roots,

The thin-winged swallow skating on the air:

The life that gladdened everything was mine.