Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity

Mentioned by Suresh in a past comment, here is the official site, and here is a more detailed definition.

New comment on your post #7 “A story of my incompetence.”
Author : Sanjay
Comment:
I am an Indian, and my only experience with the indian embassies/consulates has been over the phone. Needless to say, every person that I have spoke to, without exception, has been rude and condescending. I don’t know where they get these ***holes. How hard is it to offer some modicum of courtesy? They make it their business to deliberately make things difficult. Sometimes, I have got so frustrated, I feel like throwing away my citizenship at the earliest opportunity.

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I am an Indian, and my only experience with the indian embassies/consulates has been over the phone. Needless to say, every person that I have spoke to, without exception, has been rude and condescending. I don’t know where they get these ***holes. How hard is it to offer some modicum of courtesy? They make it their business to deliberately make things difficult. Sometimes, I have got so frustrated, I feel like throwing away my citizenship at the earliest opportunity.

Similar sentiments, indeed…

Nice poem, I am not sure I see the connection…

New comment on your post #278 ” The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters”
Author : miranda
Comment:
less scatological, more versey — i give you a.e. housman, #9 from his last poems:

THE chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.

There’s one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
One season ruined of your little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.

We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.

It is in truth iniquity on high
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool’s-errand to the grave.

Iniquity it is; but pass the can.
My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;
Our only portion is the estate of man:
We want the moon, but we shall get no more.

If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours
To-morrow it will hie on far behests;
The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours
Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

To delete this comment, visit: http://valis.cs.uiuc.edu/~sariel/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=confirmdeletecomment&p=278&comment=159

less scatological, more versey — i give you a.e. housman, #9 from his last poems:

THE chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.

There’s one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
One season ruined of your little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.

We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.

It is in truth iniquity on high
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool’s-errand to the grave.

Iniquity it is; but pass the can.
My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;
Our only portion is the estate of man:
We want the moon, but we shall get no more.

If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours
To-morrow it will hie on far behests;
The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours
Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

New comment on your post #273 “Ra’hel – Flowers of perhaps”
Author : miranda
Comment:
the words, if not exactly the sentiment, remind me of a blake poem:

O rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of dark crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

To delete this comment, visit: http://valis.cs.uiuc.edu/~sariel/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=confirmdeletecomment&p=273&comment=158

the words, if not exactly the sentiment, remind me of a blake poem:

O rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of dark crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

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