I Can't Believe I've Already Outlived Byron

[snurri]

I'm reading Don Juan; I haven't decided whether I'm actually enjoying it as a whole, but the fourth canto, fourth stanza really struck home:

And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'T is that I may not weep; and if I weep,
'T is that our nature cannot always bring
Itself to apathy, for we must steep
Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,
Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;
A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.

Dayum.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_stranger_here/]

Of course you've outlived Byron. Dude died like 200 years ago!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Smartass! If you were here I would smack you. (In an affectionate way.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_stranger_here/]

Oh sure, you promise affectionate manhandling but then you never deliver!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I am just intimidated by the proud history of Meisner/Rosenbaum smackdowns.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_stranger_here/]

Ben provokes in me an unusual balance of fondness and violence. With you, I'd be gentle.

By the way, how *do* you come up with the perfect icon for every occasion?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Years of practice?

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

When Mozart was my age... he'd been dead for a couple of decades.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Seriously! If I wanted to die a young, lamented genius, I really missed my opportunity :-)

[v-verticordia.livejournal.com]

I'm just impressed that someone else knows Byron! If only I'd lived in 1816, Lord B. and I would have got it ON!!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know him. We used to hang, y'know. Do stuff. NOT THAT KIND OF STUFF.