athenaeum

a boneyard for fragments...

[paullicino]

Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.

[theredshoes]

[adreamafragment]

"Today only the person who no longer believes in a happy ending, only he who has consciously renounced it, is able to live."

     -- Ernst Junger, "Glass Bees" (Image: Jacob Epstein, "Rock Drill")

[adreamafragment]

"People begin to see that something more goes into the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed, a knife, a purse, and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen, grouping, light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed indispensable to attempts of this nature..."

     -- Thomas De Quincey, "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" (Image: Franz Von Stuck, "The Murderer")

[woodendreams]

[adreamafragment]

 Originally from coulombic.

"Al that lond was ever light, For when it schuld be therk and night, The riche stones light gonne As bright as doth at none the sonne."

    -- Anonymous, "Sir Orfeo"

[hoodoothatvoodoo-deactivated201]

[ooksaidthelibrarian]

[adreamafragment]

ooksaidthelibrarian:

[sagan-indiana666]

[adreamafragment]

"I felt Darvell’s weight, as it were, increase upon my shoulder, and, turning to look upon his face, perceived that he was dead."

    — Byron, “Augustus Darvell”

[adreamafragment]

"be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness."

     -- Charles Bukowski, "The Laughing Heart"

[adreamafragment]

"The cursed crocodile became to me the object of more horror than all the rest. I was compelled to live with him, and (as was always the case in my dreams) for centuries. Sometimes I escaped, and found myself in Chinese houses. All the feet of the tables, sofas... the abominable head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out at me, multiplied into ten thousand repetitions; and I stood loathing and fascinated"

      -- Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater

[adreamafragment]

"It is our sorrow. Shall it melt? Ah, water

Would gush, flush, green these mountains and these valleys,

And we rebuild our cities, not dream of islands."

     -- W.H. Auden, "Paysage Moralise." (Image: Karl Wilhelm Gentz, "A Bedouin Camp.")

[adreamafragment]

"I wish," said she, "I were a flower -- happy in the sunshine -- happy in the soft night air. No beating heart within to make me wretched."

      -- Letitia E. Landon, "The Bride of Lindorf." (Image: Marriotew, "Gothic Flower.")

[adreamafragment]

"Midnight storm. Trees walking off across the fields in fury

naked in the spark of lightning.

I sit on the white porch on the brown hanging cane chair

coffee in my hand midnight storm midsummer night."

      -- Michael Ondaatje, "Light." (Image: G.S. Burtenshaw, "Summer Storm.") 

[softthoughtslikeorangepeels]

Edryn with his Lady and Dwarf Journey to Arthur’s Court

Gustave Doré

Wood engraving

Yet take thou heed of him, for, so thou pass

Beneath this archway, then wilt thou become

A thrall to his enchantments, for the King

Will bind thee by such vows, as is a shame

A man should not be bound by, yet the which

No man can keep; but, so thou dread to swear,

Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide

Without, among the cattle of the field.

For an ye heard a music, like enow

They are building still, seeing the city is built

To music, therefore never built at all,

And therefore built for ever.

―Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King

[thestreamofconsciousness777]

"Just as a tongue of fire eats up the stubble and into the flames mere dried grass sinks down, their very rootstock will become just like a musty smell, and their blossom itself will go up just like powder, because they have rejected the law of Jehovah of armies, and the saying of the Holy One of Israel they have disrespected.”

-Isaiah 5:24, NWT

[adreamafragment]

"I put out my hand just to touch your soft hair

To make sure in the darkness that you were still there,

And I have to admit: I was just a little afraid.

But then...

I had a little bit of luck

You were awake

I couldn't take

Another moment alone."

       -- Roger Waters, "The Moment of Clarity" (Painting by Fulesli, "The Nightmare")