our Lady of Pain

[incandescens]

My teeth are in functional working order and do not require any particular attention, apart from the usual hygiening.

(I don't know why they're under the impression that the whole hygiening thing is painless and easy. It always feels like someone running a pin round the edge of my teeth at the gumline. Oh well. No doubt it could be a lot worse.)

Managed to quilt the layers of the pansy-and-butterfly piece. Tomorrow I'll have a go at the binding. (I would be working on a knitted shawl for someone else, but I don't think they want it with me coughing/sniffing on it every quarter-hour. Hopefully in a few days this will be less regular.)

Still working. Still writing. Still wishing it was properly spring and not a grey dismal February.

Wait, it's March tomorrow.

---

Dolores

(NOTRE-DAME DES SEPT DOULEURS.)

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower;
When these are gone by with their glories,
What shall rest of thee then, what remain,
O mystic and sombre Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain?

Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;
But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,
Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,
And then they would haunt thee in heaven:
Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
And the loves that complete and control
All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
That wear out the soul.

O garment not golden but gilded,
O garden where all men may dwell,
O tower not of ivory, but builded
By hands that reach heaven from hell;
O mystical rose of the mire,
O house not of gold but of gain,
O house of unquenchable fire,
Our Lady of Pain!

O lips full of lust and of laughter,
Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,
Bite hard, lest remembrance come after
And press with new lips where you pressed.
For my heart too springs up at the pressure,
Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;
Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,
Ere pain come in turn.

[. . . given that it goes on for about 250 lines, you probably don't want me to quote the whole thing. No, nor do I.]

-- Swinburne

Comments

[archangelbeth]

Yay for teefs?

[incandescens]

I'm always nervous when I have a checkup at the dentist. Even if my conscience is fairly clear.

[archangelbeth]

*patpat* I don't like the scraping part, either. I do tend to like the "teef buffing" part, though, even if I always joke they're using polish with sugar in it...

[incandescens]

I don't mind that as much.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. 'Why are you tattooing my gums?'

Yanno, it may not be an unmixed blessing to be able to rhyme brilliantly at the drop of a hat. Swinburne, Byron-- if they were less facile, would people pay as much attention to them as they have? Because Swinburne is so decadently overblown at times, and Byron so facetious, one can't take them seriously.

[incandescens]

True. Like royal icing on a fruit cake. ;)

[la-kalaka.livejournal.com]

It drives me nuts when they start hygiening my teeth, >_< but nothing can be worst than a "root canal", that sent me over the edge >.

[incandescens]

Fortunately I've been spared that so far. (Touch wood.)

[archangelbeth]

I had a root canal! I nearly fell asleep during it. >_> (It was much better than the pain the tooth had been inflicting on me prior to uprooting it.) I'm sorry that yours was not similarly uneventful!

[vehrec.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know this one. *makes a Rebus that says the following*

'We shall know what the darkness discovers
If the grave pit be shallow or deep.
And of our fathers or old and our lovers,
we shall know if they sleep not or sleep.
We shall know weather hell be not heaven
discover if tares be not grain
And the joy of of thee seventy times seven.
Our Dolores. Our Lady of pain.'

The teeth news is good to.

[incandescens]

Heh. Neat. And thanks.