When his beloved Sophie died, Novalis Lay by her grave and wept himself to sleep. On the third night she met him in a dream. He woke transformed, longing for the last trance, “When sleep shall be without waking.”
Goddess, I have watched your motions gratify the world. Votaries of all casts and ages, genders, voices bow to you as they must, for nothing follows without you.
Deep in the wood where things escape their names, Her childish arm draped round the fawn’s soft neck (Her diffidence, its skittishness in check, Merged in the anonymity that tames), She knits her brow, but nothing now reclaims The syllables that...
Just as a swarm pours from a hollow rock In one long beeline for the wild thyme, Alighting in clusters on this purple and that, But is stricken with a mass amnesia That disorients the compass of the sun,
My enemies used to annoy the hell out of me with their fake cheerfulness, their pathetic need to be liked, or their drive to dominate every conversation.