Sunday, May 4, 2008

I want to get a tattoo in London

Before I left for London I knew I wanted to get a tattoo while I was here. Those of you who will give me positive advise about such matters, please do.

One of the first days in class my professor, Kate McPherson, read a poem to us by John Donne. I've never studied any of the old British Lit, I've always been too afraid. But when Kate read "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" I couldn't help but cry. It was the most beautiful poems I'd ever heard. So I thought it would make an appropriate London tattoo. The stanza I want reads:

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

So what do you think? It will have to be pretty big and I cant make up my mind on where to put it. The following line is equally good:

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

but I think I like the first one more.

Someone, please give me your advise.

4 comments:

Heather said...

I like the first one better, too. As for where it should go, I don't know.

Mike said...

I like the first one and if I may offer a suggestion, you should use the words as an outline of a heart on your back or wherever works best (depending on font size).

Clay said...

They are both wonderful!!! Try this. write them down on a nice card and put that card in your wallet. Read them everyday for a year. after a year you will know what to do

Happy Cinco de mayo!

Clay said...

They are both wonderful!! Try this. Write them both on a card and put that card in your wallet. Every day for a year take that card out and read it aloud. After a year you will know.