Tears, Idle Tears

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"End, begin. It's all the same: big change!"

-Augra

...and so ends a summer.

"...But Don't Take MY Word for It!"

Books I've read this summer:

1. My Fair Godmother, by Janette Rallison

2. Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer

3. Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

4. The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare

5. Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett

6. Till We Have Faces, by C. S. Lewis

7. The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

8. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

9. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

10. Ophelia, by Lisa Klein

11. I, Coriander, by Sally Gardner

12. Lirael, by Garth Nix

13. The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Expuery

14. Castle in the Air, by Diana Wynne Jones

...and books I would like to read before school starts in two weeks:

1. The Host by Stephenie Meyer

2. Abhorsen by Garth Nix

3. Dune by Frank Herbert

4. Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis

Till We Have Faces was again amazing. It is my favorite book of the summer still, though Howl's Moving Castle is particularly excellent, and Lirael had odd connections to me personally. The Alchemist was good, except for the part where the entire thing was one, huge, self contradiction. The Witch of Blackbird Pond bothered me, and I've decided that it's because it's a historical fiction. I might be morally opposed to historical fictions- I'll let you know how that development goes. The Little Prince was surprisingly familiar, and The Hunger Games made me cry.

Books I'd like to read after school starts but not for school:

1. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

2. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray

3. The Trial by Franz Kafka

4. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

5. Hunger Games #3!

Also, I firmly believe in libraries. Both the public and private kind.

Youth Conference 2010