Monday, December 10, 2012

Poetry Monday

I re-watched Bright Star over the weekend and liked it even more than I did when I first saw it. Not that there is a lot of competition, but this has to be the best film about not just a poet but poetry. And for all its grief, and the sadness of its love story, it's a funny film, full of wit.


Here's John Keat's poem "Bright Star," where the film gets its title.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-- 
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death. 

2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed this film very much.
    We are currently watching Ben Whishaw in The Hour 2, which concludes this week.

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  2. I'm overdue for a repeat of this one. And what an excellent new Q.

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