#Sonnets from the Portuguese

[arowanaprincess]

Renée Elise Goldsberry, Satisfied / Mara Page / William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet / Panic! At The Disco & fun., C'mon / Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda / Annie Spratt / Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese

[child-of-hurin]

A heavy heart, Belovèd, have I borne From year to year until I saw thy face, And sorrow after sorrow took the place Of all those natural joys as lightly worn As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace Were changed to long despairs, till God’s own grace Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring And let it drop adown thy calmly great Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing Which its own nature doth precipitate, Which thine doth close above it, mediating Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.

Sonnet 25 Elizabeth Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

[aboutbirds]

XVII

My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes God set between His After and Before, And strike up and strike off the general roar Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats In a serene air purely. Antidotes Of medicated music, answering for Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour From thence into their ears. God’s will devotes Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine. How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use? A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse? A shade, in which to sing — of palm or pine? A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from Sonnets from the Portuguese

[yourbespokeartisanalapocalypse]

Sonnet 1 from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese.

[pirateacademia]

Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barret Browning (1850)

[child-of-hurin]

Transcript:

I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair, And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, ... Guess now who holds thee?'—Death,' I said. But there, The silver answer rang ... Not Death, but Love.'

Sonnet 1 from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[shivunin]

WIP Wednesday

Thanks for the tags @demandthedoodles and @greypetrel! I've mostly been fiddling with the fic I started posting on AO3, but here is some of another piece I've been working on as well. It's partially inspired by this poem:

I just love the contrast between all those long, hesitating lines and the abruptness of "Stand further off then! Go."

So, in relation to that, here is the precursor to the biggest fight Maria and Fenris ever have (this is...roughly three weeks after the Act 2 romance scene):

“You have a kind heart,” Hawke’s father had told her often when she was young.  It had usually been followed by a crucial word: but.   You have a kind heart—but the rabbit is beyond saving, but a kind heart will not help you when a demon comes to call, but you should let the boy fight if he wants to fight. Sometimes, the words were slightly different. Sometimes, Malcolm said instead, “Mijita, for the Maker’s sake, if you bring me to one more felled bridge I am leaving you to walk home alone,” or “Maria, you should not have shocked him back to life. I told you, did I not, what it means to be a mage? We are leaving; pack your bags.” But what he always, always meant to say was: you have a kind heart, but—

Malcolm was the first, but he wasn’t the last.  “I don’t know why you bother, Hawke,” Varric said often, feet propped on his table, shaking his head. “Doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.” “I’ve no idea what you see in him,” Anders had said just a few weeks, glaring after Sebastian as he walked away. “He is beyond helping.”  “I will never understand why you let that man speak to you so,” Aveline had said more than once, scowling over something Anders had said.  Or— “you do know that the elf is like an angsty porcupine, right?”  Sometimes, she felt like snapping in return: there is no point. I don’t know why I bother, either. But—there was no point in snapping, either, was there? They didn’t really want to know why.  But Merrill—Merrill wanted to know why. Sometimes, Merrill didn’t even add the “but.” Sometimes, she just told Hawke that she was kind, no qualifiers. That was why Maria liked to spend time with her: Merrill didn’t waste time on prevarications like that. You were who you were, for good or ill, and she seemed to see little point in chiding one to change.  Merrill was her friend; Hawke might even have been tempted to call Merrill her dearest friend, if she’d ever felt inclined to bestow such a distinction. It hurt her to see Merrill hurt, to hear the tears in her voice as they trudged back up through the bowels of the mountain.  “Pol,” she said somewhere behind Hawke, “what was he thinking? He acted like I was a monster.”  “His death isn’t your fault,” Hawke wanted to say, but Fenris spoke first.  “You are a monster.”  Hawke stopped dead, turning on her heel to look at them. Fenris was not looking at her; he was looking at Merrill, disgust plain on his face. Isabela stared at him, moving to set a hand on Merrill’s shoulder. “You aren’t helping,” the pirate told him.  Tears had long since begun to fall down Merrill’s cheeks, darkening the collar of her dress, and when Isabela drew her closer more of them fell from her chin to the green fabric below.  “Good,” Fenris snapped. He opened his mouth to say more, but glanced at Hawke and shut it again.  You are a monster.  Hawke could not say if she was angrier for Merrill or herself. No—she couldn’t say what she was feeling at all, really. Fenris looked at her, his mouth pressed into a narrow line, but at last he turned away.  “Come on,” Hawke told Merrill, reaching for the elbow Isabela wasn’t holding. “Let’s get us out of these caves, alright? Nothing is ever helped by the addition of giant spiders.” Merrill nodded, her hands steady despite her tears, and allowed herself to be led from the caves.  You are a monster. 

Tagging: @star--nymph @ndostairlyrium @heniareth @daggerbean @alta-et-astra @palipunk @dungeons-and-dragon-age @idolsgf

[poems-from-around-the-world]

Sonnet 43 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning - UK

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

[mangora]

I’m so tired here are some assorted Disventure Camp headcanons:

•Jake is really into poetry. Some of his poems are bangers, some of them are absolute dogshit. He posts some of them online, mostly the bad ones because he’s not self-aware of how bad they are. He will spend hours on end writing in his notes app. Guy is a big fan of sonnets and free verse but his strong suits are odes and villanelles

•Rosa María, James, Yul, Lake, Riya, Fiore, and Alec are all multilingual. Rosa speaks English and Spanish, James speaks Portuguese and English, Yul speaks Korean and English, Lake speaks German and English as well as some French, Riya speaks Hindi and English, Fiore speaks English and some Italian, and Alec speaks English as well as a variety of other languages (he did a minor in linguistics for his university degree so he knows the basics of multiple major languages).

•Hunter’s a competitive chess player. Ally’s the only person who’s ever beat him fair and square, but even then, that rarely happens

•Lake is great at baking. She’s incredibly exact when it comes to measurements, timing, and technique. Rosa, meanwhile, is a great cook and she doesn’t measure anything

•Aiden can play bass guitar. He started learning as a teenager because he wanted to join an emo band one day. Chase your dreams boy

•Yul used to have braces and he’s really embarrassed about it

•Gabby’s a forager, she loves to forage for wild fruit and mushrooms and greens

•Ellie’s kinda a ghoul in the kitchen. Like she can make good food and drinks but most of the time she’s so tired that she makes evil energy drink-instant coffee potions or like that pistachio & condensed milk concoction from Arthur

•In a better universe I think Ellie and Jake are frenemies instead of fully hating each other and they play Minecraft together and Ellie is constantly stealing Jake’s shit and trying to defeat the Ender Dragon meanwhile he screams every time he sees a Creeper and begs her to turn Keep Inventory on because he keeps dying

•Miriam gets a cat after the show. She’s an older white cat named Snowball and she has the same personality as her. They are best friends and Miriam is so annoyed by her. She made them matching sweaters. Snowball is only fully nice to Jake

•Fiore listens to Thrash Metal. It’s partially just to throw people off when they find out, she thinks it’s funny

•Fiore also enjoys those YouTube prank videos, she knows they’re fake they’re just so stupid that she finds them hilarious. Kristal gives her an iPad for a day one time for entertainment and it pisses the rest of the Magenta team off so bad because she keeps playing these prank videos and watching epic fail compilations at full volume

•Grett loves crocheting. She slowly turns into one of those people who crochets during lectures and while watching movies and shit

•James is really good at Tetris

•Ally is obsessed with Sci-Fi. She, Tess, and Hunter watch Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Star Wars together because they all love the worldbuilding so much. Tess writes fanfiction about almost everything they watch. Hunter has terrible media literacy and misses the themes every time but he has fun watching

•After All Stars, Riya gets really into tattoos. She gets matching ones with Connor

•People antagonize Tom with the cop slide video and every time he clenches his fist and goes, “Stop laughing at him.”

•Kai has a bunch of pet bugs. Maggy’s secretly afraid of them still but she’s getting there. She likes rollie pollies

•Karol used to do roller derby and Lill used to ice skate. Ggirlf,riends,,, I miss them chat. Where is my old woman yuri

•Aiden eats plain yogurt nothing on it and it’s the one thing James doesn’t like about him. Like it’s so upsetting to him. Why does he eat plain yogurt

•Ashley likes hyperpop, don’t tell anyone

•Tom likes crockpot food. He is not invited to potlucks for this reason. He will always bring the crockpot

•Alec doesn’t like splatter films but he really enjoys psychological horror, especially mockumentaries and mondo films

•Lake read creepypasta a lot as a kid and she wouldn’t go into the kitchen after dark because she was afraid of Jeff the Killer appearing at her fridge

[theoriginalnikegirl]

take the 2024 dostoyevsky-official challenge: every month, learn one poem by heart. it could be in any language, it could be poetry you already know, it could be poetry you're reading for the first time, it could be a sonnet, it could be a ballad: go wild (but for this, i recommend choosing canonical poetry in your chosen language, not poetry in translation, nor something new). above all, poetry, language charged with meaning to the ultimate degree, is meant to be read aloud, to be felt with the tongue. by the end of the year, you'll have a better intuitive understanding of the poet's craft, of the possibility and beauty of language, an improved reading style, and, through the memorization process, a deep knowledge of each chosen poem—and you'll have committed 12 poems to heart, sitting around for any occasion, keeping you company wherever you go

[one-girl-swaying-alone]

guess now who holds thee? not death, but love.

“King”, Florence and the Machine/ “Caught”, Florence and the Machine/ “The Rage of Achilles”, Giovanni Battista/ “We Used to be Friends”, Searows/ Sonnets from the Portuguese 1, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[magpie-trove]

August Reads

Cress & Winter • Marissa Meyer | it was Trying Times and for some reason Lunar Chronicles is one of my go to escapes and comforts turns out. I really wanted to reread Cress but got sucked in and had to do Winter too. Still as good as the first time. Deeply near and dear to my heart.

The Talented Mrs Mandelbaum • Margalit Fox | new non fiction about a Victorian crime boss lady and her band of thieves and fencers. Short and to the point. Interesting. Wouldn’t say it was one of my favorites of the year but it was worth reading.

Your Vote Matters • Rebecca Katzman | childrens non fiction about the electoral process. Made sense and had a real nice layout and pictures!!!!. (Not a picture book it was like 80 pages or something? But yeah I like it!)

Howl’s Moving Castle • Diana Wynne Jones | was just rereading all my faves for a bit there. Still a 12/10 book.

Yours from the Tower • Sally Nicholls | new YA epistolary fiction set in the 1890’s. Surprised me! Actually had a little nuance! Was very good about the characters. Important to me cause it made me understand how people work in certain situations better than I had before. I think I cried sad and I know I happy cried a little towards the end. I do recommend.

Sonnets from the Portuguese • Elizabeth Barrett Browning | still a favorite

Voices in the Air • Naomi Shihab Nye | the Emily poem!!!!! I think I loved Everything Comes Next more, a lot of these poems got more specifically political and idk it takes away their power a bit to me? But it still had plenty of bangers

Wheels of Change • Sue Macy | YA non fiction about the role of the bicycle in the suffragette movement. Interesting topic, real nice layout, lots of good primary sources. It had a reprint of a lot of pretty funny things women were advised not to do while riding, including “do not say Feel my muscle” and “do not ask Do you like my bloomers?”

The Castle of Llyr • Lloyd Alexander | follow up to The Black Cauldron. Beloved. He writes at such a good level and manages to keep the Nobility to the story.

Kilmeny of the Orchard • LM Montgomery | I actually didn’t like this one that much? Kinda hinged on some racist stereotypes and was mean about adoptees and the romance felt kind of condescending. Idk I wasn’t really impressed.

Saintly Women of Modern Times • Joan Carroll Cruz | Learned so many cool stories!!! I did also discover though at times you need examples as encouragement and at times examples might get a little discouraging. The women highlighted were all unique and interesting though!

Mapmakers and the Lost Magic • Amanda Castillo and Cameron Chittock | children’s graphic. Nice art interesting premise and world building. I’d probably read the next one.

Uniformity with God’s Will • Alphonsus Linguori | very good

A Wish in the Dark • Christina Soontornvat | HELLO!!! Childrens fiction with the premise Les Miserables but in Thailand. LOVED IT. SHOOK. I CRIED. BEAUTIFUL. I loooved the characters looooved the words, it was sooooo goooood!!!!!!!!! Made me want to do something nothing else has ever succeeded in (read Les Miserable). Do recommend!

The Lucky Poor • Mazie Lovie | adult graphic memoir about getting a house through Habitat for Humanity and unexpected drawbacks or something? Nothing really struck me about it tbh

Sisters of the Lost Marsh • Lucy Strange | the VIIIIIIBES VIIIIBES FOR DAAYYYYS. Middle Grade fantasy based on English folklore and circus, about six sisters who’s father says they’re under a curse. Beautifully done. This one will haunt me. Do recommend.

Romanov • Nadine Brandes | YA historical fantasy. had its moments but I kinda wanted the fantasy out of it at times though it wasn’t as jarring as some other stuff in that regard. It was a nice walk in the park and then the most nightmarish thing I’d read then just kind of ok. Not bad at all but not my most favorite. I just wanted to read about Anastasia tbh. I think (?) it had a pretty good illustration of forgiveness at one point though that made it make sense to me in a new way.

[aboutbirds]

XXXIII

Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear The name I used to run at, when a child, From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, To glance up in some face that proved me dear With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled Into the music of Heaven's undefiled, Call me no longer. Silence on the bier, While I call God — call God! — so let thy mouth Be heir to those who are now exanimate. Gather the north flowers to complete the south, And catch the early love up in the late. Yes, call me by that name, — and I, in truth, With the same heart, will answer and not wait.

XXXIV

With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee As those, when thou shalt call me by my name — Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same, Perplexed and ruffled by life's strategy? When called before, I told how hastily I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game, To run and answer with the smile that came At play last moment, and went on with me Through my obedience. When I answer now, I drop a grave thought, break from solitude; Yet still my heart goes to thee — ponder how — Not as to a single good, but all my good! Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow That no child's foot could run fast as this blood.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from Sonnets from the Portuguese

[theladyofshalott1989]

"My letters! (alive and quivering / against my tremulous hands)" // Sebastian Sallow x Damien Evans Drabble

While going through my Google Drive this morning, I found this old Sebastian x Damien drabble from last year that I never ended up posting, so I thought I'd share it here. I also played around with it in Canva to make it more visually pleasing. Enjoy! Note: The title comes from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese 28."

[flyinghome-againstthewind]

2023 Bookbinding Wrap-up

Bookbinds in 2023:

A Place to Belong (150k words, 504 pages)

Tales of James Fraser (37k words, 130 pages)

Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Rebind)

Muscle Memory (121k words, 354 pages)

The Lost Ones + WMLRTM (Quarto bind, 18k words, 111 pages)

New skills learned:

foil quill pen/using heat transfer foil

making quarto binds!

lots of typesetting tricks and experiments

Goals met in 2023:

make more binds than in 2022 (3) 🥳

learn how to make a tiny book 🥳

I realize I am relatively slow at bookbinding compared to more established binders, so I don’t think my journey in bookbinding is all that exciting to follow 😅 However, I do this just for fun and feel like I’m still constantly learning and growing, and I balance my time with this with reading and writing as well, so it’s okay that my pace is what it is. Hoping to stay on pace and make about 5 books in 2024 and not stress myself out and just enjoy the process!

pics of my 2023 binds under the cut