Reflections

"I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful--
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish."

Mirror

by Sylvia Plath

1961

Christmas Eve

A Very Vintage Christmas post #10

1 day until Christmas

Welcome to the last real post for Think Classic's 3rd annual A Very Vintage Christmas.

We sincerely hope that you have had a truly blessed and joyous holiday season.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

"Christmas hath a darkness

Brighter than the blazing noon,

Christmas hath a chillness

Warmer than the heat of June,

Christmas hath a beauty

Lovelier than the world can show:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,

Brought for us so low.

Earth, strike up your music,

Birds that sing and bells that ring;

Heaven hath answering music

For all angels soon to sing:

Earth, put on your whitest

Bridal robe of spotless snow:

For Christmas bringeth Jesus,

Brought for us so low."

-Christina Georgina Rossetti

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve, whether you watch a Christmas movie, go to midnight mass, bake cookies, or go to bed early.

I'll be heading to a candlelight Christmas Eve service later this evening, and then it's home to a cup of homemade eggnog while I read A Christmas Carol out loud in front of the tree with family.

If you have the time or the interest, check back tomorrow afternoon for a special collection of Christmas memories past.

May God bless each and every one of you, and grant you a truly merry Christmas.

Peace on earth, good will to all men.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

AS

Autumn's Anthem

"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay."

-Robert Frost

"Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around he here;

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!

How like the hopes of childhood's day,

Thick clust'ring on the bough!

How like those hopes in their decay--

How faded are they now!

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here;

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!

Wither'd leaves, wither'd leaves, that fly before the gale:

Wither'd leaves, wither'd leaves, ye tell a mournful tale,

Of love once true, and friends once kind,

And happy moments fled:

Dispersed by every breath of wind,

Forgotten, changed, or dead!

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here;

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!"

-Charles Dickens

Don't forget to join us tomorrow for another Think PINK! post about a classic star who battled breast cancer.

In Memoriam

As we have specified to our readers before, we here at Think Classic are from the good ole US of A. Therefore, as many of you will know, today is a very important day for us. It is important to us to do even some small post in honor of those who sacrifice for us in order to give us our freedom on this Memorial Day.

So take a little time to reflect on the significance of this day before you go out and have some fun on the lake or at a cookout. And if you know somebody who serves, be sure to thank them.

"Bent double, like of old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind:

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in sonic smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-

My friend, you would not talk with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori."

Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est

1917

I heard the bells on Christmas day...

"I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play.

And wild and sweet, the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along th' unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head.

'There is no peace on earth,' I said.

'For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.'

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.'

Til, ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day.

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Poem written on Christmas day in 1864 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

And the best version of the song that I have found yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK8xB1opuQ8

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!