Miscellany #3 The Beauty and Sorrow of Impossible Love, Poems of W.B. Yeats & Edgar Allan Poe

The path we're taking is not a road, Kiyo, it's a pier, and it ends someplace where the sea begins. It can't be helped. - Yukio Mishima

From the Editor

The poem speaks of the yearning for a feeling of home, a place of warmth and comfort we can't return to. It talks about the search for that feeling of home, but it's not a person or a place, it's a feeling that we cannot replace. The poem encourages us to cherish the love that we find, for it's the only home we'll ever find.

It feels like you can't go home again

Longing for a place that feels like home, Streets once known, now strangers to roam. Memories fade, like an old friend, Yearning for a feeling that will never end

In search of solace, we often fall, For someone who feels like it all. An impossible love, we chase in vain

The one we love, may not feel the same, Leaves us searching for someone to blame. But love is a mystery, a force of its own, That chooses its path, even when we're alone

We keep on searching, never to give in, For that feeling of home, that once again begins. Home is not a person, or a place, It's a feeling we cannot replace.

Warmth in our hearts, memories we keep, Love that we cherish, forever to reap.

"When You Are Old" by W.B. Yeats

"When You Are Old" by W.B. Yeats is a poem that reflects on a love that was never possible. The speaker urges his beloved to remember the beauty of their youth and their unrequited love when they are old and alone

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

"Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe

"Annabel Lee" is a hauntingly beautiful poem by Edgar Allan Poe that tells the story of a love so intense and pure that it continues even after death. The speaker mourns the loss of his beloved Annabel Lee, who has died young and tragically. He describes their love as one that began when they were just children and grew stronger over the years

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,

 In her sepulchre there by the sea

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.