An Invite to Eternity by John Clare -- mine this poem

[hengest]

Wilt thou go with me sweet maid
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through the valley depths of shade
Of night and dark obscurity
Where the path hath lost its way
Where the sun forgets the day
Where there’s nor life nor light to see
Sweet maiden wilt thou go with me

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves.
Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity
Where parents live and are forgot
And sisters live and know us not

Say maiden wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be
To live in death and be the same
Without this life, or home, or name
At once to be, and not to be
That was, and is not – yet to see
Things pass like shadows – and the sky
Above, below, around us lie

The land of shadows wilt thou trace
And look – nor know each other’s face
The present mixed with reasons gone
And past, and present all as one
Say maiden can thy life be led
To join the living to the dead
Then trace thy footsteps on with me
We’re wed to one eternity

[hengest]

Where stones will turn to flooding streams

On our world, which in the lovely tongue is called Lubell, the landmasses move, inchworm-style, by dissolution and constitution.  These processes take place, we believe, irregularly and simultaneously. No scholar can predict dissolution, but when it occurs, constitution is happening elsewhere.

Both processes occur most often, but not always, at the edges of the land.

When dissolution occurs, stone is the first material to shimmer, soften, and turn to fresh water.  From first shimmer to running water is a span of only a few minutes.  We guess that stone well below ground is affected at the same time, but we cannot confirm by observation.  Above ground, reports often speak of flooding as the new stone-water rushes downhill to the sea.  Soil, sand, and the other things of which the ground is composed change to water over another hour or so.  Soon the flooded country becomes a filthy inlet as all becomes water and the trees and structures are left floating or sinking. Over the next several days, they too seem to become water.  The new area of sea is at first fresh water, becomes brackish, and finally salt.  

Constitution at the edge is more difficult to observe. It may happen even more quickly than dissolution, usually in the form of a torrential downpour on the shores that is changed, almost as it falls, to the elements of the land on which we live.  Early explorations of these new areas are undertaken only by the foolhardy, but if their reports may be believed, the land at first is wild and chaotic, with unlikely stacks of boulders, unstable aboveground tunnels of loam and stone, and bizarrely active flora that is not found in the more settled lands. 

Both processes can occur inland as well, forming lakes or mountains where there was once erable land. 

[hengest]

Okay, the above post is moderately nuts. I hoped someone else would do something with it or carry it somewhere, but it may have to be me!

[El Borak]

Dec 5, 2021 11:17:02 GMT -5 hengest said:

Okay, the above post is moderately nuts. I hoped someone else would do something with it or carry it somewhere, but it may have to be me!

It is great stuff. Fascinating, although for me nothing to write is coming to mind, but will be interested in what you do here.

[hengest]

Dec 5, 2021 17:42:29 GMT -5 El Borak said:

Dec 5, 2021 11:17:02 GMT -5 hengest said:

Okay, the above post is moderately nuts. I hoped someone else would do something with it or carry it somewhere, but it may have to be me!

It is great stuff. Fascinating, although for me nothing to write is coming to mind, but will be interested in what you do here.

I tend to fear taking things too far.  There is nothing I like less than a bunch of verbose nonsense that, by the third paragraph, overspends the creative impulse that birthed it.  But maybe I should get out of my comfort zone a little and try pushing things a bit more, after all, no one going to be forced to waste their time reading any of it.

[El Borak]

Dec 5, 2021 19:05:49 GMT -5 hengest said:

Dec 5, 2021 17:42:29 GMT -5 El Borak said:

It is great stuff. Fascinating, although for me nothing to write is coming to mind, but will be interested in what you do here.

I tend to fear taking things too far.  There is nothing I like less than a bunch of verbose nonsense that, by the third paragraph, overspends the creative impulse that birthed it.  But maybe I should get out of my comfort zone a little and try pushing things a bit more, after all, no one going to be forced to waste their time reading any of it.

I think pushing the envelope is a good thing, it defines the limits that you or your audience are willing to expand into.