u/Icy-Management-9749

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,

But at every gust more dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold and dark and dreary.

It rains and the wind is never weary.

My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past.

And youth's fond hopes fall thick in the blast.

And my life is dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart and cease repining

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining

Thy fate is the common fate of all

Into each life some rain must fall

Some days must be dark and dreary.

I knew nothing about Dostoevsky, not even his name, until a few weeks ago uncultivated person that I am, reading no ‘periodicals’! In a bookshop my hand accidentally came to rest on L’esprit souterrain, just recently translated into French (the same kind of chance brought me in acquaintance with Schopenhauer when I was 21, and with Stendhal when I was 35). The instinct of affinity (or what shall I call it ?) spoke to me instantaneously my joy was beyond bounds; not since my first encounter with Stendhal’s Rouge et Noir have I known such joy.

Sometimes I want to throw good girl in the fire

but instead I walk her to the sea.

We sidestep broken conch shells,

she pretends they don’t prick her feet.

Seeing her so small, I can’t believe I ever thought to watch her burn.

I tell her the water can save us; it’s saved me many times before.

I tell her she was good long before she learned not to flinch.

We sit for hours, good girl and me.

The tide rises and reaches our feet.

She wades to the second sandbar,

the water rocks her back and forth.

Wave by wave, words leave her lungs.

Wave by wave, she starts to hum.

Wave by wave, she lets herself
be held.

The whitehorses ride in, one by one,

and drag the shame of a thousand women
out with the tide.

Wave by wave, she no longer repents for her own blood.

I think the best thing to do is just constantly imagine yourself being 80, sitting in a rocking chair and looking back on your life. Think about all the opportunities you’re presented with everyday and ask yourself ‘would my 80 year old self be happy with this?’. Like, say your dad wakes you up at eight in the morning and asks if you want to go out for breakfast. Right now, as a teenager, you’d probably just roll over in your bed and refuse, because you’re ‘too tired’ or ‘can’t be bothered’. But as an 80 year old looking back, you would jump out of bed and go and have that breakfast without any second thought. It’s just the little things, you know.

It keeps eternal whisperings around

Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell

Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell

Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.

Often ’tis in such gentle temper found,

That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be mov’d for days from where it sometime fell,

When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.

Oh ye! who have your eyeballs vex’d and tir’d,

Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;

Oh ye! whose ears are dinn’d with uproar rude,

Or fed too much with cloying melody

Sit ye near some old cavern’s mouth, and brood

Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir’d!

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;

For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight

Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;

His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,

And be among her cloudy trophies hung.