Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms
by Sir Thomas Moore
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turned when he rose.
Happy, Happy New Year (tomorrow), Ms D! Thank you for giving me a little lovely light at the end of this one. Have fun!
PS: nearly forgot genealogy trivia: Tom Cruise is playing his 21st cousin, 5 times removed, Claus Schenk von Stauffenburg in Valkyrie. That's the 2nd actor I know of off hand whose played a relative (the other's Alec Baldwin who played both Jimmy Doolittle in Pearl Harbor and Robert Jackson in Nuremberg). BTW, Tom's 1st cousin is William Mapother who played Ethan on Lost, and Buddhist scholar Dr. Robert Thurman (7th cousin, 1x removed) and thus 8th cousin to the good doctor's daughter, Uma. Could I have let 2008 slip by without just one more bit of trivia? Maybe, but then maybe the would would have stopped spinning, or the sun stopped burning--who knows what would have happened? Would you have wanted me to take that chance? JK!!!! Honestly, I hope you have a lovely day, a fun night, and a great next year, Ms D!