Sonnets from the Portuguese

X

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; and equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee ... mark! ... I love thee---in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God acceps while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.

XLI

I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,
With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all
Who paused a little near the prison-wall
To hear my music in its louder parts
Ere they went onward, each one to the mart's
Or temple's occupation, beyond call.
But thou, who, in my voice's sink and fall
When the sob took it, thy divinest Art's
Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot
To hearken what I said between my tears, . . .
Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot
My soul's full meaning into future years,
That they should lend it utterance, and salute
Love that endures, from Life that disappears!

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Haha pictures

The permanent solution to the unpalatably pallid appearance of sample food display sets


Many hands make light work.


No one would really blame you if you eat at your wound, blood, thrombi and all.


Cow and Chicken


He needs braces and some other lipstick colour.


Poor guy! I know, I pity him too.


Major fashion faux pas...at least in the part of the world where I'm at!


I'm seriously, absolutely, overwhelmingly convinced that this is the a major reason why people take the back seat in cabs.


Looks like ginseng.


And my good ol' friend, The Bass. How can I forget him in his cavemen party wear!

Summer Ends

What I did this summer:

Meeting God weekly with a group of friends
Sacked all tuition kids, except giving mercy on one
Competed on a daily diet of the same dish of chicken with rice

Travelled to Slovakia, where Asians were novelty exhibitions
(especially so when we were wearing ethnic costumes);
Salzburg, where the tour guide advised that if we were scared as the bus drove uphill
We could close our eyes, just like what the driver is doing;
Vienna, where insects and humidity never bothered the grass;
London, where cupcakes were made of bloodied hummingbirds
...and Piggotts, where lunch under the blue English hue came true!

Enjoyed quietude and greenery with Corrie ten Boom,
and then crying through the stale, greasy air with her afterwards.
Met Jerry Bridges and koinonia, currently also catching respectable sins,
Suffered from brain enlargosis after Don Carson's hijack,
Engaged as a temporary visionary fisherman with Joseph Stowell,
Know that my salvation has been WAY assured than AIA and Great Eastern's sneaky plots,
Attended a course on legitimate destruction with Nick Pollard,
and praising our Refuge in verse with King David.

Prayed for friends and with friends.
Sang music so beautiful I've never praised the Creator also of the Light invisible and intellectual that wonderfully,
Learning to love beyond the honeymoon phase.
Renewed to be more Christlike.