neither quixote nor taras bulba

I've developed this terrible habit lately of buying books, reading about half of them, putting them aside and then buying more books. Books and music are really my only extravagance, by the way. It's the wisest way to spend $$. And so, I have about twenty half-finished books sitting around my house. Some of them I put aside, never to be touched again (see: Blake, The Complete Poems - which pretty much soiled itself after The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). But there are others that I plan on getting back to. One being Faust Part 2 (I think this tale should've been the theme of this blog since I mention it so much). I read half of it in September, then moved onto Jung, E.E., Meister Eckhart, Amy Lowell, and a few others. I picked it up today again and perused it a little more patiently, and though it's a little slow-going and confusing at times, there's some really brilliant lines for the discovering. Here's one from Meph:

"To gain your end, the act must be your own."

And another, which I aim towards all children of loving and/or overprotective parents:

"For say, what guide of youth, will really tell us, face to face, the truth? Each will enlarge or trim with hardihood, now grave now gay, to keep the children good."

And finally this last, which I aim at myself, especially when I was younger, and my delusions of grandeur (which I blame on any and all of my German forebearers - I'm 1/3 kraut, and DofG is a wholly krautian trait...)

BACCALAUREUS:

This is the noblest call for a youthful soul!
The world was not, until I made it whole;
I raised the sun from the ocean where it lay;
(etc...etc...)
And who but me your liberation wrought
From bonds of philistines that fettered thought?
But I, a soul inspired by freedom's might,
Pursue with joy my star of inner light,
And swiftly, in rapture of my mind,
I speed to glory, darkness left behind.

MEPH:

Go, my original, your glorious way! -
How truth would irk you if you really sought it:
For who can think of truth or trash to say,
But someone in the ancient world has thought it?
And yet this fellow puts us in no danger,
For wait a few more years and things will mend:
The vat may hold a ferment strange and stranger,
There'll be some wine in the bottle in the end.

And so I say:

Soliloquy

is it not enough knowing
even genius is ill-spoken, and that the mind
will eat itself like a morning
cloud

is it not enough knowing
every loving relationship ends in tragedy

that there's no accomplishment
greater than death?

nothing's enough, of course.

but as for you, for whom the gods
make dying real
if you must sacrifice your life for anything
let there be this: grace

and remember the matadors
those noble falcons, remember Socrates
drinking hemlock and falling to one
knee

it's the ultimate rhythm of things
the dance and breath

to finally understand,
and afterwards, to understand deeply

a life given up like this
was never a life lost

and to turn away from man
the sun and self-love,

without holding on, finally -

that's best.