The Labour of Beauty
06 Mar 2010 1 Comment
in Poetry, Study Abroad Tags: beauty, Poetry, School
I have to write 2,250 words by Tuesday about the poem “Adam’s Curse,” by W.B. Yeats. I really like this poem, so I wanted to share it. It’s about how ever since Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, mankind has had to labor for beauty, be it in the form of poetry, physical beauty, or love. The beginning also addresses how poets and writers are undervalued, and people in other professions think we sit around with our heads in the sky all day. But really, working with words is just as hard, or even more so, than working with money or medicine. The product has to seem effortless.
We sat together at one summer’s end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.’. . . . . . . . . And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There’s many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, ‘To be born woman is to know-
Although they do not talk of it at school-
That we must labour to be beautiful.’I said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
Precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.’We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.
Since poetry is meant to be heard, take a listen.
Trip #1: Cardiff, Wales
28 Feb 2010 1 Comment
in Study Abroad, Travel Tags: castles, School, sports, Travel Writing
It’s the last day of February and I have so much to write about. This month was filled with traveling. I went on 5 different trips – a different place every weekend, and two trips the third week. I’m dedicating a different post to each one.
The first weekend of February, a group of us went on a day trip to Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. We were 3 Canadians, 2 Americans, 1 Englishman, and 1 Dutch – all study abroad students. Our first stop was Cardiff, Castle, right in the middle of the city, surrounded by a towering stone wall. The inside was a stretch of mowed lawn, the castle seated on the left, and the Castle Keep mounted on a hill straight ahead.
Climbing the stone staircase to the Keep’s door was easy compared to the spiraling ascent inside to the roof. My size 6 1/2 foot only fit half of each step, and it felt like my entire body turned to face a different direction each time I moved up. It was dizzying. From the top of the Keep, through the spaces cut out of the rim of stones, we could see the heads of buildings beyond the castle walls. The most interesting was The Cardiff Millennium Stadium, outside the far right corner. It is rectangular with rounded edges, the body all metallic and shine. It’s hard, silvery exterior, with beams jutting out and poking the sky from four corners, made the stadium look like an alien spacecraft compared to the sullen, stone castle sitting not too far away. It was the most striking juxtaposition of old and new.
We then made our way back to the field to watch canons go off and listen to the marching band, which all unraveled after the clock tower struck noon. The men leading the procession wore tall, black hats, which looked like gorilla arms fixed to their heads with a white band under their chins.
After lunch, we took a City Sightseeing tour on a Hop On Hop Off bus. The double-decker buses exist worldwide, painted bright red with the city they are touring written across the side. It was freezing cold that day, but 5 of us sat in the open air on the roof. Katie, one of the Canadian girls, and I sat at the front of the roof, where a transparent hood protected us from blistering gusts and bird poop when crossing under bridges.
I learned that Roald Dahl was born in Cardiff and they named a plaza after him, called Roald Dalh Plass. Plass means plaza in Norwegian (Both his parents were from Norway). He was my favorite author as a child, and I still have a soft spot for him. (If you’ve read my essay, The Day I Broke My Brother, you know why.)
The day turned slightly sour when everyone wanted to wander around the mall and I wanted to go to the National Museum Wales. Two students from Hong Kong caught up with us (they knew a girl in our group), and five minutes after I met them, they came with me to the museum. Half the building was dedicated to science, the other half to art.
For dinner, we ate at La Tasca (We have one at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore!). It was the first sit-down restaurant I had been to since the first night I arrived in Wales. That made the tapas even more delicious.
Cardiff was a completely different city at night. Throngs of people were on the sidewalks, but it was due to the huge rugby game between Wales and England. Crowds were gathered in bars and restaurants throughout the city, all gazes glued to the television. England won. When he went to watch the game at a bar, the Englishman who was in our group almost got into a fist fight with a Welshman.
We took the train home because we missed the last bus. What’s nice about bus tickets is that they can be used for a return train ride. I met a French student while waiting on the platform. He recognized one of the Canadian girls who was with us and came over to chat. Turned out that he was waiting for the same train back to our university. We talked to him for a while, and found out that French students pay a little more than $200 for undergraduate school. We were shocked at how cheap university is there, while he was shocked at how expensive it is in the States.
The funniest part of the conversation was when he told us about his roommates in Wales. They are each from a different country and speak a different language, and they all communicate with broken English.
“My name is Jules [pronounced Joo-el]. One calls me Jools. The other calls me Julio. And the spanish guy calls me Jose.”
Leanne and I couldn’t stop laughing.
~ Salma
