Operation: Doomsday

Now Watch This Drive

 

from Antigone - Sophocles

[Chorus]

...

Not to be born is best

when all is reckoned in, but once a man has seen the light

the next best thing, by far, is to go back

back where he came from, quickly as he can.

For once his youth slips by, light on the wing

lightheaded... what mortal blows can he escape

what girefs won't stalk his days?

Envy and enemies, rage and battles, bloodshed

and last of all despised old age overtakes him,

stripped of power, companions, stripped of love -

the worst this life of pain can offer,

old age our mate at last.

...

All the letters I can write
Are not fair as this—
Syllables of Velvet—
Sentences of Plush,
Depths of Ruby, undrained,
Hid, Lip, for Thee—
Play it were a Humming Bird—
And just sipped—me—

Emily Dickinson

 

 

 

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humor’d thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

John Coltrane - My Favorite Things

 

from Paradise Lost - Book 1

    'Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,'

Said then the lost Archangel, 'this the seat

That we must change for Heaven? - this mournful gloom

For that celestial light? Be it so, since he

Who now is sovran can dispose and bid

What shall be right: farthest from him is best,

Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme

Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,

Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,

Receive thy new possessor - one who brings

A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less than he

Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure; and, in choice,

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

Th' associates and co-partners of our loss,

Lie thus astonished on th' oblivious pool,

And call them not to share with us their part

In this unhappy mansion, or once more

With rallied arms to try what may be yet

Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?'