It seems like it was years ago (and honestly, it was years ago or so it seems) but I received some bad news last night and instantly flashed back to my days at University, to my favorite liturature course, one covering the Victorian Era (for those of you who don’t know me, I have a minor in English literature). Christina Rossetti is one of my favorite authors of that era and one of her poems is echoing through my head, even this morning:
Promises Like Pie-Crust
Promise me no promises,
So will I not promise you:
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast,
Free to come as free to go:
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?
You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one:
I, so cold, may once have seen
Sunlight, once have felt the sun:
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass,
And the fortune is not told.
If you promised, you might grieve
For lost liberty again:
If I promised, I believe
I should fret to break the chain.
Let us be the friends we were,
Nothing more but nothing less:
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess.
It’s funny how the human mind works…you can be focused one some bad news and instantly the brain takes you down memory lane, to something totally irrelevant and yet completly on point.