Tuesday 22 June 2010

First Love


I contributed to a discussion recently on whom, besides a family member, one had as a childhood hero. Most people mentioned celebrities of one kind or another, or comic book figures. For me the answer was simple: it was a girl in my boarding school, let me call her Lorna, not her real name. I saw her when I was in first form in my early teens. She was in fifth form, a prefect, a member of the upper school. She was beautiful, excellent at sports, excellent in so many ways. Yes, she was my heroine but there was more: she was the first person ever to inspire romantic thoughts. Quite simply I had a terrible crush on her. But we never spoke; she probably wasn’t even aware of my existence. For, you see, Lorna was a goddess straight from Mount Olympus whereas Ana was a mere mortal. :-)

Blest as the immortal gods is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears and sees thee, all the while,
Softly speaks and sweetly smile.

'Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And raised such tumults in my breast;
For, while I gazed, in transport tossed,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost;

My bosom glowed; the subtle flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame;
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung;

In dewy damps my limbs were chilled;
My blood with gentle horrors thrilled:
My feeble pulse forgot to play;
I fainted, sunk, and died away.




46 comments:

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  2. I can admire politicians. I could never love them. :-)

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  4. Oh, Adam, have you never known love, real flesh and blood love, the force - it is a force - that captivates poets? If and when you do you will know the difference, believe me, you will know. It's like the power of the Sun to that of a candle. :-)

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  6. That's the world of Platonic shadows. They would stop flickering, yes, they would. :-)

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  8. It's impossible to describe love in ordinary words. Much as I adore history and politics they are nothing when one is hit by that fever, that all-consuming fever.

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  12. You poem sounds Shakespeare to me... but I love this line so very much:
    "...Lorna was a goddess straight from Mount Olympus whereas Ana was a mere mortal."
    You described it very well in "ordinary words". lol

    BTW, the girls in the pictures are adorable. Is one of them you?

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  13. Oh Ana, I loved this last comment. You are a romantic dear. But never forget the different shades of love, the way you express it, love sounds like a virus.
    This is dangerous love, as passion overtakes and blinds the infected. It also hurts like hell when it doesn't work out.
    A very powerful shade, and ever lasting love is something that develops out of that feeling, but is often harder to find. But you can work on it. I did and attest that it is possible, and that it gives strength to life that cannot be found anywhere else.

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  14. I know that that kind of feeling is such that one tends to feel it's the best thing in life, what life's about, the thing without which life would not be - what it must be, but I can't help thinking it's just chemicals in the brain playing tricks on us! (Do you know Mann's Magic mountain - the older boy that Hans borrows a pencil from and who appears again as Frau Chauchat? Your post made me think of it.)

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  15. Yun yi, it's a translation of a poem by the divine Sappho. No, the girls are from one of my favourite movies, a story about first love. I'll add an extract from YouTube in a bit.

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  16. Rainer, yes, I am; I always have been. For me it has been like a virus. :-)

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  17. Mark, indeed so. I went around for a week once literally walking on air! Yes, I have read The Magic Mountain. I've also read Schopenhauer, who believes that love is no more than a gossamer net in which the Will captures its victims. But when you are in that net nothing else matters. :-))

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  18. Yun yi, I've now added the video. It's from a Swedish movie called Fucking Amal. The ending, when the two girls come out, is so beautiful. It made me laugh and cry at one and the same time. :-)

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  19. Apparently, the human brain continues to grow until about 30 years old. This means that what we call love may well find different forms of expression for teenagers.

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  20. Thanks, Nobby. It's hit me more or less in the same way each time, teens or twenties. :-)

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  21. Adam, I've added the clip on Adso's confession.

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  23. I dont know, you write a post about lesbians and it gets 20+ comments.

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  24. Ana, I ought to have said:

    Apparently, the human brain continues to grow until about 30 years old. This means that what we call love may well find different forms of expression for teenagers and those in their twenties.

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  25. they are so pretty. thanks for adding them.
    i had a crush to my classmate about the same age. the one sided infatuation lasted 3 years! we were best friends and i never dared to express my love because i thought i was the only girl who loved girl in the entire universe. lol. until our "friendship" died i thought i would die too but strangely, i found freedom, which i enjoyed as much as being captured...
    i think, everytime we fall in love as the same way as the first time. that's how we call it "passion", "craziness". but the capability to take the the "broke up" is getting better. it hurts to see that girl in movie trying to kill herself... she thought it was the end of the world. it is not.
    good post ana. even though every time we love like the first time, still, it was the first time we would never forget.

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  26. Adam, I accept that some people are just not made to love, to feel the grip of the fever, not made to live dangerously. We should all seek happiness in our own way and I wish you well on your monkish and ascetic path. :-) Was aus Liebe gethan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse.

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  27. Dominic, the post is about love, not lesbians.

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  30. Yun yi, you know exactly it's like. :-) Oh, if you ever look for that movie it was released in the States under the title Show Me Love.

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  32. Adam, it doesn't matter if Nietzsche contradicts your 'position' or not - to hell with Nietzsche, to hell with all second-hand thought. :-)) You are what you are; that's all that's important. The monkish reference was made really in the context of that movie. I think by any reasonable interpretation a life dedicated to scholarship could be described as ascetic, in the best meaning of the word. :-)

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  34. Not in the same way: never in the same way.

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  36. My first love as a boy loved me back, only to deny she ever did years later. -sigh- Love in first grade is so much simpler.

    Coll

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  37. Adam, read the Book of Sand. :-)

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  38. It is, Coll, and so beautiful. :-)

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  44. Rehan, I think you are a wonderful poet. Wife or not you know about love.

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