The new Forum may be found at http://booksliterature.com/ .

The former post was removed as it violated our user agreement, or it did not add to the "Great Books" conversation in a constructive manner.

In our ongoing effort to ensure quality discussions throughout our forums, from now on only registered members may post. Spam will not be tolerated. If you would like to help moderate, please contact "jolly roger ship @ yahoo . com".

To post please register at http://jollyroger.com/greatbooksforums or at JollyRogerWest.com Great Books Forums.

We prefer Shakespearean Sonnets, reflections on Space and Time, and posts along the lines of:

Tis not a lip or eye we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all. -Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711

CLII

In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, 
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost:
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see;
  For I have sworn thee fair; more perjur'd I,
  To swear against the truth so foul a lie.!

CLIII

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love,
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seeting bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired, 
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,
  But found no cure, the bath for my help lies
  Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.
 	--William Shakespeare

It is our continuing goal to foster the world's greatest converstation.

In the future, please register and make all posts to http://jollyroger.com/greatbooksforums,

and/or join the forums Great Books & Philosophy Forums @ jollyrogerwest.com.

LXIV

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded, to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate--
That Time will come and take my love away. 
  This thought is as a death which cannot choose
  But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.
 	--William Shakespeare

Best Regards,

William Einstein Shakespeare :)

CXXI

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
  Unless this general evil they maintain,
  All men are bad and in their badness reign.
 	--William Shakespeare