Sublime Songs Quotes

The Day is Done The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day. Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time. For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavor; And to-night I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start; Who, through long days of labor, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.

DEAR DI­ARY You are greater than the Bible And the Con­fer­ence of the Birds And the Up­an­ishads All put to­geth­er You are more se­vere Than the Scrip­tures And Ham­mura­bi’s Code More dan­ger­ous than Luther’s pa­per Nailed to the Cathe­dral door You are sweet­er Than the Song of Songs Might­ier by far Than the Epic of Gil­gamesh And braver Than the Sagas of Ice­land I bow my head in grat­itude To the ones who give their lives To keep the se­cret The dai­ly se­cret Un­der lock and key Dear Di­ary I mean no dis­re­spect But you are more sub­lime Than any Sa­cred Text Some­times just a list Of my events Is holi­er than the Bill of Rights And more in­tense

[On Chopin's Preludes:] "His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds. His composition of that night was surely filled with raindrops, resounding clearly on the tiles of the Charterhouse, but it had been transformed in his imagination and in his song into tears falling upon his heart from the sky. ... The gift of Chopin is [the expression of] the deepest and fullest feelings and emotions that have ever existed. He made a single instrument speak a language of infinity. He could often sum up, in ten lines that a child could play, poems of a boundless exaltation, dramas of unequalled power.

Everyone is silent, under the spell of the song. But it is strange: that desperate sorrow and that bitter reproach with which it throbs are sweeter than the most sublime, most passionate joy.

Star friendship.— We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did—and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the almighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see one another again,—perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us! That we have to become estranged is the law above us: by the same token we should also become more venerable for each other! And thus the memory of our former friendship should become more sacred! There is probably a tremendous but invisible stellar orbit in which our very different ways and goals may be included as small parts of this path,—let us rise up to this thought! But our life is too short and our power of vision too small for us to be more than friends in the sense of this sublime possibility.— Let us then believe in our star friendship even if we should be compelled to be earth enemies.

Things perish. Gods have passed. But song sublimely cast Shall citadels outlast.

The Thought of Death. It gives me a melancholy happiness to live in the midst of this confusion of streets, of necessities, of voices: how much enjoyment, impatience and desire, how much thirsty life and drunkenness of life comes to light here every moment! And yet it will soon be so still for all these shouting, lively, life- loving people! How everyone's shadow, his gloomy travelling companion stands behind him! It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an emigrant- ship: people have more than ever to say to one another, the hour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently behind all the noise-so greedy, so certain of its prey! And all, all, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that the near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this self-deafening and self-overreaching! Everyone wants to be foremost in this future-and yet death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all in this future! How strange that this sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost no influence on men, and that they are the furthest from regarding themselves as the brotherhood of death! It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the idea of death! I would fain do something to make the idea of life to us to be more than friends in the sense of that sublime possibility. And so we will believe in our even a hundred times more worthy of their attention.

Why Just ask the donkey in me To speak to the donkey in you, When I have so many other beautiful animals And brilliant colored birds inside That are longing to say something wonderful And exciting to your heart? Let's open all the locked doors upon our eyes That keep us from knowing the Intelligence That begets love And a more lively and satisfying conversation With the Friend. Let's turn loose our golden falcons So that they can meet in the sky Where our spirits belong-- Necking like two Hot kids. Let's hold hands and get drunk near the sun And sing sweet songs to God Until He joins us with a few notes From his own sublime lute and drum. If you have a better idea Of how to pass a lonely night After your glands may have performed All their little magic Then speak up sweethearts, speak up, For Hafiz and all the world will listen. Why just bring your donkey to me Asking for stale hay And a boring conference with the idiot In regards to this precious matter-- Such a precious matter as love, When I have so many other divine animals And brilliant colored birds inside That are all longing To so sweetly Greet You!

Did I learn anything? No way. But all the things you want to learn from grief turn out to be the total opposite of what you actually learn. There are no revelations, no wisdoms as a trade-off for the things you have lost. You just get stupider, more selfish. Colder and grimmer. You forget your keys. You leave the house and panic that you won’t remember where you live. You know less than you ever did. You keep crossing thresholds of grief and you think, Maybe this one will unveil some sublime truth about life and death and pain. But on the other side, there’s just more grief.

Sylvia Plath is an example of the egotistical sublime: her subject is herself, her predicament, her violent Romantic emotions,” wrote the poet Craig Raine.

The deepest shade of twilight did not send him from his favourite plane-tree. He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through aether, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation. When the moon shed her soft rays among the foliage, he still lingered, and his pastoral supper of cream and fruits was often spread beneath it. Then, on the stillness of night, came the song of the nightingale, breathing sweetness, and awakening melancholy.

Drukpa Kunley, the Master of Truth, himself said, ‘If you think I have revealed any secrets, I apologize; If you think this a medley of nonsense, just enjoy it!’ Such sentiments, here, I fully endorse!

Teddy shuddered. The idea of the sublime little bird being plucked from the sky, of its exquisite song being interrupted in full flight, was horrible to him.

Certain kinds of people, and a fortiori certain kinds of writers, have always experienced the world around them in the Gothic manner, I’m almost positive. Perhaps there was even some little stump of an apeman who witnessed prehistoric lightning as it parried with prehistoric blackness in a night without rain, and felt his soul rise and fall at the same time to behold this sublime and terrifying conflict. Perhaps such displays provided inspiration for those very first imaginings that were not born of our daily life of crude survival, who knows? Could this be why all our primal mythologies are Gothic—that is, fearsome, fantastical, and inhuman?

Some waves will touch your shore; they have come from the sea, carrying messages from me to you. When these waves will reach your shore, you will be astonished at their beauty. They will be soft and sublime. They will carry music - melodious pieces of songs of the sea. Listen well. Listen deep. They carry magic. Feel it with all your depth.

Not only laughter and gay wisdom but the tragic, too, with all its sublime unreason, belongs among the means and necessities of the preservation of the species.

...One sublime malady/Is still called song.

She looped one side of the closed necklace around it, and in twisting, pulled the chain very tight around Father’s throat. “Now go to sleep,” she whispered, “in chasms deep, with darkness all around you . . .” A lullaby. Shallan spoke the song through her tears—the song he’d sung for her as a child, when she was frightened. Red blood speckled his face and covered her hands. “Though rock and dread may be your bed, so sleep my baby dear.” She felt his eyes on her. Her skin squirmed as she held the necklace tight. “Now comes the storm,” she whispered, “but you’ll be warm, the wind will rock your basket . . .” Shallan had to watch as his eyes bulged out, his face turning colors. His body trembling, straining, trying to move. The eyes looked to her, demanding, betrayed. Almost, Shallan could imagine that the storm’s howls were part of a nightmare. That soon she would awaken in terror, and Father would sing to her. As he’d done when she was a child . . . “The crystals fine . . . will glow sublime . . .” Father stopped moving. “And with a song . . . you’ll sleep . . . my baby dear.

Le poison de Venise, c’est la féerie d’une architecture de songe dans la douceur d’une atmosphère de soie ; ce sont les trésors des siècles, amassés là par une race de marchands et de pirates, la magnificence de l’Orient et de l’ancienne Byzance miraculeusement alliée à la grâce de l’art italien, les mosaïques de Saint-Marc et le revêtement rosé du palais ducal ; le poison de Venise, c’est la solitude de tant de palais déserts, le rêve des lagunes, le rythme nostalgique des gondoles, le grandiose de tant de ruines ; dans des colorations de perles —perles roses à l’aurore et noires au crépuscule —, le charme de tristesse et de splendeur de tant de gloires irrémédiablement disparues ; et dans le plus lyrique décor dont se soit jamais enivré le monde, la morbide langueur d’une pourriture sublime.

When these waves will reach your shore, you will be astonished at their beauty. They will be soft and sublime. They will carry music - melodious pieces of songs of the sea. Listen well. Listen deep. They carry magic. Feel it with all your depth. "There is light within your reach. You have to go deep and find it!

The Ocean's Song We walked amongst the ruins famed in story Of Rozel-Tower, And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory And heave in power. O Ocean vast! We heard thy song with wonder, Whilst waves marked time. "Appear, O Truth!" thou sang'st with tone of thunder, "And shine sublime! "The world's enslaved and hunted down by beagles, To despots sold. Souls of deep thinkers, soar like mighty eagles! The Right uphold. "Be born! arise! o'er the earth and wild waves bounding, Peoples and suns! Let darkness vanish; tocsins be resounding, And flash, ye guns! "And you who love no pomps of fog or glamour, Who fear no shocks, Brave foam and lightning, hurricane and clamour,-- Exiles: the rocks!

Jean Valjean understood thoroughly the expiation of the former; that personal expiation, the expiation for one’s self. But he did not understand that of these last, that of creatures without reproach and without stain, and he trembled as he asked himself: The expiation of what? What expiation? A voice within his conscience replied: “The most divine of human generosities, the expiation for others.” Here all personal theory is withheld; we are only the narrator; we place ourselves at Jean Valjean’s point of view, and we translate his impressions. Before his eyes he had the sublime summit of abnegation, the highest possible pitch of virtue; the innocence which pardons men their faults, and which expiates in their stead; servitude submitted to, torture accepted, punishment claimed by souls which have not sinned, for the sake of sparing it to souls which have fallen; the love of humanity swallowed up in the love of God, but even there preserving its distinct and mediatorial character; sweet and feeble beings possessing the misery of those who are punished and the smile of those who are recompensed. And he remembered that he had dared to murmur! Often, in the middle of the night, he rose to listen to the grateful song of those innocent creatures weighed down with severities, and the blood ran cold in his veins at the thought that those who were justly chastised raised their voices heavenward only in blasphemy, and that he, wretch that he was, had shaken his fist at God.

Would you like to hear a song while I cut your hair? There's one my sister Pandora and I wrote, called Pig in the House." Looking intrigued, Bazzle nodded. Cassandra launched into a sublimely ridiculous song about the antics of two sisters trying to hide their pet pig from the farmer, the butcher, the cook, and a local squire who was especially fond of bacon. While she sang, she moved around Bazzle's head, snipping off long locks and dropping them into a pail Garrett held for her. Bazzle listened as if spellbound, occasionally chortling at the silly lyrics. As soon as the song was finished, he demanded another, and sat while Cassandra continued with My Dog Thinks He's a Chicken, followed by Why Frogs are Slimy and Toads are Dry. Had Tom been capable of falling in love, he would have right there and then, as he watched Lady Cassandra Ravenel serenade a ragamuffin while cutting his hair. She was so capable and clever and adorable, it made his chest ache with a hot pressure that threatened to fracture something. "She has a marvelous way with children," Garrett murmured to him at one point, clearly delighted by the situation. She had a way with everyone. Especially him. He'd never been besotted like this. It was intolerable.

A morning-flowered dalliance demured and dulcet-sweet with ebullience and efflorescence admiring, cozy cottages and elixirs of eloquence lie waiting at our feet - We'll dance through fetching pleasantries as we walk ephemeral roads evocative epiphanies ethereal, though we know our hearts are linked with gossamer halcyon our day a harbinger of pretty things infused with whispers longing still and gamboling in sultry ways to feelings, all ineffable screaming with insouciance masking labyrinthine paths where, in our nonchalance, we walk through the lilt of love’s new morning rays. Mellifluous murmurings from a babbling brook that soothes our heated passion-songs and panoplies perplexed with thought of shadows carried off with clouds in stormy summer rains… My dear, and that I can call you 'dear' after ripples turned to crashing waves after pyrrhic wins, emotions drained we find our palace sunned and rayed with quintessential moments lit with wildflower lanterns arrayed on verandahs lush with mutual love, the softest love – our preferred décor of life's lilly-blossom gate in white-fenced serendipity… Twilight sunlit heavens cross our gardens, graced with perseverance, bliss, and thee, and thou, so splendid, delicate as a morning dove of charm and mirth – at least with me; our misty mornings glide through air... So with whippoorwill’d sweet poetry - of moonstones, triumphs, wonder-woven in chandliers of winglet cherubs wrought with time immemorial, crafted with innocence, stowed away and brought to light upon our day in hallelujah tapestries of ocean-windswept galleries in breaths of ballet kisses, light, skipping to the breakfast room cascading chrysalis's love in diaphanous imaginings delightful, fleeting, celestial-viewed as in our eyes which come to rest evocative, exuberant on one another’s moon-stowed dreams idyllic, in quiescent ways, peaceful in their radiance resplendent with a myriad of thought soothing muse, rhapsodic song until the somnolence of night spreads out again its shaded truss of luminescent fantasies waiting to be loved by us… Oh, love! Your sincerest pardons begged! I’ve gone too long, I’ve rambled, dear, and on and on and on and on - as if our hours were endless here… A morning toast, with orange-juiced lips exalting transcendent minds suffused with sunrise symphonies organic-born tranquilities sublimed sonorous assemblages with scintillas of eternity beating at our breasts – their embraces but a blushing, longing glance away… I’ll end my charms this enraptured morn' before cacophony and chafe coarse in crude and rough abrade when cynical distrust is laid by hoarse and leeching parasites, distaste fraught with smug disgust by hairy, smelly maladroit mediocrities born of poisoned wells grotesque with selfish lies - shrill and shrieking, biting, creeping around our love, as if they rose from Edgar Allen’s own immortal rumpled decomposing clothes… Oh me, oh my! I am so sorry! can you forgive me? I gone and kissed you for so long, in my morning imaginings, through these words, through this song - ‘twas supposed to be "a trifle treat," but little treats do sometimes last a little longer; and, oh, but oh, but if I could, I surly would keep you just a little longer tarrying here, tarrying here with me this pleasant morn

The Grand Canyon is a land of song. Mountains of music swell in the rivers, hills of music billow in the creeks, and meadows of music murmur in the rills that ripple over the rocks. Altogether it is a symphony of multitudinous melodies. All this is the music of waters. The adamant foundations of the earth have been wrought into a sublime harp, upon which the clouds of the heavens play with mighty tempests or with gentle showers.

Don’t you see, Mhairie, if we don’t keep telling the stories, we shall forget them. And if we forget them, our marrow will leak away, our clan marrow will vanish. Now was not the time to forget. Now was the time to remember. Memory, Dearlea thought, is the life-pumping artery, the blood in that artery. Memory is the sinew, the muscle that stretches back to the Beyond and before the Beyond. Have we not come full circle? she wondered. Now is not the time to forget. She felt a quiet despair, for there was song deep within her desperate to get out. Lupus, she would not die with the song inside her! Her mother, who rode next to her on another narwhale’s back with Abban, turned toward her and howled, “Sing, Dearlea! Sing! You are a skreeleen. The first in this new world.” So Dearlea threw back her head and sang. And out of that dark place we fled That broken land so scarred and dead Our hopes our dreams forever gone. Then did we follow this wolf so bold To this place that did unfold As if lost in mists of time It was the Distant Blue A new world sublime. On a bridge of ice we walked and walked We now give thanks to Lupus, to Glaux, To Ursus and gods not known, And to whales who carried us The last way To here in our new home. The other creatures began to join in. The wolves howled, and from Toby’s and Burney’s deep chests came sonorous roars that stirred Faolan’s heart. Dearlea was so right to sing, to remind them of what they had left behind.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men! It was as if an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said; For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.

O May I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirr’d to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man’s search To vaster issues. So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, Breathing as beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of man. So we inherit that sweet purity For which we struggled, fail’d, and agoniz’d With widening retrospect that bred despair. Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued, A vicious parent shaming still its child, Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolv’d; Its discords, quench’d by meeting harmonies, Die in the large and charitable air. And all our rarer, better, truer self, That sobb’d religiously in yearning song, That watch’d to ease the burthen of the world, Laboriously tracing what must be, And what may yet be better,—saw within A worthier image for the sanctuary, And shap’d it forth before the multitude, Divinely human, raising worship so To higher reverence more mix’d with love,— That better self shall live till human Time Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky Be gather’d like a scroll within the tomb Unread forever. This is life to come, Which martyr’d men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffus’d, And in diffusion ever more intense! So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.

From the perspective of my old laptop, I am a numbers man, something like that every instruction he gives me is a one or a zero I remember well I have information about him before he left for his new toy thinner, younger, able to keep up with him, I have information about him may 15th 2008, he listened to a song five times in succession it was titled Everybody, open parenthesis, Backstreet's Back, close parenthesis it included the lyric 'Am I sexual, yeaaaaah' He said once, computers like a sense of finality to them when I write something I don't want to be able to run from it this was a lie he was addicted to my ability to keep his secrets I am a numbers man, every instruction he gives me is a one, or a zero I remember well January, 7th 2007 I was young just two week awake he gave me, a new series of one's and zeros the most sublime sequence I have ever seen it had curves, and shadow, it was him he gave his face in numbers and trusted me to be the artist, and I was do not laugh I have read about your God you kill each other over your grand fathers memory of him I still remember the fingertips of my God dancing across my body After I learnt to draw him he trusted with more art rubric jpeg 1063 was his favourite Him, and that woman, resting her head in the curve of his nick I read his correspondence she hasn't written him back in years but he asks for it, constantly, jpeg 1063, jpeg 1063, jpeg 1063 it was my master piece it looked so, .., life like I wanted to tell him That's not her that is me that is not her face those are my ones and zeros waltzing in space for you she is nothing more than my shadow puppet you do not miss her, you miss me, I am a numbers man, every instruction he gives is a one or a zero I remember well but he taught me to be a Da Vinci and I sit here, with his portraits waiting for him to return I do not think he will Is that what it means to be human to be all powerful, to build a temple to yourself and leave only the walls to pray

With contradict’ry aim I stand, Rent in twain between two lands. One is lit with flowers bright, The other by sublime starlight. “A searing fire is one way felt. The sting of ice that does not melt Upon the other path is found. To both I am forever bound. “My mind is called to what I’ve known, And mem’ries of what once was home. Yet calls the road that leads to where I breathe now more familiar air. “In her is found the now and then, The song of hope, the sighed amen, Both fire and ice, both flow’rs and stars, The future, past, the near and far. “Where e’er the path that guides her feet, In what far clime her heart doth beat, Howe’er oft I depart or bide, Home is where my love resides.

Nor is it again that the novel has killed the play, as some critics would persuade us - the romantic movement of France shows us that. The work of Balzac and of Hugo grew up side by side together; nay, more, were complementary to each other, though neither of them saw it. While all other forms of poetry may flourish in an ignoble age, the splendid individualism of the lyrist, fed by its own passion, and lit by its own power, may pass as a pillar of fire as well across the desert as across places that are pleasant. It is none the less glorious though no man follow it - nay, by the greater sublimity of its loneliness it may be quickened into loftier utterance and intensified into clearer song.

Éramos amigos y nos hemos vuelto extraños. Pero está bien así, y no queremos disimularlo ni ocultarlo como si tuviésemos que avergonzarnos de ello. somos dos barcos y cada uno tiene su meta y su rumbo, puede que nos crucemos y celebremos una fiesta juntos, como lo hicimos cuando los probos barcos quedaron fondeados en un mismo puerto y a un mismo sol, tan tranquilos que parecía como si ya hubiesen llegado a su destino y hubiesen tenido un mismo destino. Pero más tarde la todopoderosa fuerza de nuestra tarea volvió a separarnos, hacia diferentes mares y latitudes, y quizá no nos volvamos a ver nunca más, o tal vez nos volveremos a ver, pero ya no nos reconoceremos: ¡los diferentes mares y vientos nos habrán cambiado! Tener que volvernos extraños el uno para el otro es la ley que está por encima de nosotros: ¡precisamente por eso hemos de ser más venerables uno para el otro! ¡Precisamente por eso ha de ser más sagrado para nosotros el pensamiento de nuestra antigua amistad! Existe probablemente una tremenda curva y órbita estelar invisible en la que nuestros caminos y metas, tan distintos como son, puede que estén incluidos como pequeños trampos, ¡elevémonos hacia ese pensamiento! Pero nuestra vida es demasiado breve y nuestra vista demasiado débil como para que podamos ser más que amigos en el sentido de aquella sublime posibilidad. Creamos, pues, en nuestra amistad estelar, aun en el caso de que tuviéramos que ser enemigos sobre la tierra.

There is no single food that affects people as deeply as bacon. Bacon appeals to our basest desires of meat and fat and salt. It elevates everything it touches, transforming a burger into a celebration, taking simple lettuce and tomato and making them more delicious than any salad vegetable has a right to be. Bacon is the ultimate polyamorous food, loving everyone equally, eggs and pancakes, sandwiches and salads, meats and vegetables, mains and sides, savory and sweet. Bacon on grilled cheese? Delicious. Bacon dipped in the maple syrup from your French toast? Sublime. Watch a breakfast buffet, and see where people consistently overindulge. I bet it will be the vat of bacon, which sends its smoky siren song out to everyone.

But when Aragorn arose all that beheld him gazed in silence, for it seemed to them that he was revealed to them now for the first time. Tall as the sea-kings of old, he stood above all that were near; ancient of days he seemed and yet in the flower of manhood; and wisdom sat upon his brow, and strength and healing were in his hands, and a light was about him. And then Faramir cried: 'Behold the King!' And in that moment all the trumpets were blown, and the King Elessar went forth and came to the barrier, and Húrin of the Keys thrust it back; and amid the music of harp and of viol and of flute and the singing of clear voices the King passed through the flower-laden streets, and came to the Citadel, and entered in; and the banner of the Tree and the Stars was unfurled upon the topmost tower, and the reign of King Elessar began, of which many songs have told. In his time the City was made more fair than it had ever been, even in the days of its first glory; and it was filled with trees and with fountains, and its gates were wrought of mithril and steel, and its streets were paved with white marble; and the Folk of the Mountain laboured in it, and the Folk of the Wood rejoiced to come there; and all was healed and made good, and the houses were filled with men and women and the laughter of children, and no window was blind nor any courtyard empty; and after the ending of the Third Age of the world into the new age it preserved the memory and the glory of the years that were gone.

If we believe the Greek poet, "it is sometimes pleasant to be mad" again, Plato always knocked in vain at the door of poetry when he was sober; or, if we trust Aristotle, no great genius has ever been without a touch of insanity. The mind cannot use lofty language, above that of the common herd, unless it be excited. When it has spurned aside the commonplace environments of custom, and rises sublime, instinct with sacred fire, then alone can it chant a song too grand for mortal lips: as long as it continues to dwell within itself it cannot rise to any pitch of splendor: it must break away from the beaten track, and lash itself to frenzy, till it gnaws the curb and rushes away bearing up its rider to heights whither it would fear to climb when alone.

THE BOOK OF A MONK’S LIFE I live my life in circles that grow wide And endlessly unroll, I may not reach the last, but on I glide Strong pinioned toward my goal. About the old tower, dark against the sky, The beat of my wings hums, I circle about God, sweep far and high On through milleniums. Am I a bird that skims the clouds along, Or am I a wild storm, or a great song? Many have painted her. But there was one Who drew his radiant colours from the sun. My God is dark- like woven texture flowing, A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined; I only know that from His warmth I'm growing. More I know not: my roots lie hidden deep My branches only are swayed by the wind. Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul In silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray? But when thy glance rests on me then my whole Being quickens and blooms like trees in May. When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream, But when thou art awake I am thy Will Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime, Expanding like far space star-lit and still Into the distant mystic realm of Time. I love my life's dark hours In which my senses quicken and grow deep, While, as from faint incense of faded flowers Or letters old, I magically steep Myself in days gone by: again I give Myself unto the past:- again I live. Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace, Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space ... Then I am shaken as a sweeping storm Shakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave ' Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm- And Youth's fair visions that glowed bright and brave, Dreams that were closely cherished and for long, Are lost once more in sadness and in song.

The scientific world-picture vouchsafe a very complete understanding of all that happens—it makes it just a little too understandable. It allows you to imagine the total display as that of a mechanical clock-work, which for all that science knows could go on just the same as it does, without there being consciousness, will, endeavour, pain and delight and responsibility connected with it—though they actually are. And the reason for this disconcerting situation is just this, that, for the purpose of constructing the picture of the external world, we have used the greatly simplifying device of cutting our own personality out, removing it; hence it it gone, it has evaporated, it is ostensibly not needed. In particular, and most importantly, this is the reason why the scientific world-view contains of itself no ethical values, no aesthetical values, not a word about our own ultimate scope or destination, and no God, if you please. Whence came I, whither go I? Science cannot tell us a word about why music delights us, of why and how an old song can move us to tears. Science, we believe, can, in principle, describe in full detail all that happens in the latter case in our sensorium and 'motorium' from the moment the waves of compression and dilation reach our ear to the moment when certain glands secrete a salty fluid that emerges from our eyes. But of the feelings of delight and sorrow that accompany the process science is completely ignorant—and therefore reticent. Science is reticent too when it is a question of the great Unity—the One of Parmenides—of which we all somehow form part, to which we belong. The most popular name for it in our time is God—with a capital 'G'. Science is, very usually, branded as being atheistic. After what we said, this is not astonishing. If its world-picture does not even contain blue, yellow, bitter, sweet—beauty, delight and sorrow—, if personality is cut out of it by agreement, how should it contain the most sublime idea that presents itself to human mind?

Who has not known you, O deep joys of wine? Whoever has had some remorse to appease, a memory to evoke, a sorrow to drown, a castle to build in Spain, in fact all men have invoked you, mysterious god concealed in the tendrils of the vine. Wine is like man himself: one never knows to what extent one may esteem or despise him, love or hate him, nor of what sublime actions or monstrous crimes he is capable. Let us not then be crueller towards wine than towards ourselves, let us treat him as an equal. Sometimes I think I can hear wine speak (he speaks with his soul, the spiritual voice heard only by the spirit) and he says: “Man, my beloved, I would pour out for you, in spite of my prison of glass and fetters of cork, a song full of brotherhood, a song full of joy, light and hope. I am no ingrate; I know that I owe you my life. I know what it cost you in toil, your back under the burning sun. You gave me life and I shall reward you for it. I am the soul of your country. I am half-lover, half-soldier. I shall light up your aged wife’s eyes, the old companion of your everyday cares and your oldest hopes. I shall soften her glance and drop into the pupil of her eye the lightning-flash of her youth. Our close reunion will create poetry. Between us we shall make a god. This is what wine sang in its mysterious language.

Éramos amigos y nos hemos vuelto extraños. Pero está bien así, y no queremos disimularlo ni ocultarlo como si tuviésemos que avergonzarnos de ello. Somos dos barcos y cada uno tiene su meta y su rumbo, puede que nos crucemos y celebremos una fiesta juntos, como lo hicimos cuando los probos barcos quedaron fondeados en un mismo puerto y a un mismo sol, tan tranquilos que parecía como si ya hubieran llegado a su destino y hubieran tenido un mismo destino. Pero más tarde la todopoderosa fuerza de nuestra tarea volvió a separarnos, hacia diferentes mares y latitudes, y quizá no nos volvamos a ver nunca más, o tal vez nos volveremos a ver, pero ya no nos reconoceremos: ¡los diferentes mares y vientos nos habrán cambiado! Tener que volvernos extraños el uno para el otro es la ley que está por encima de nosotros: ¡precisamente por eso hemos de ser más venerables uno para el otro! ¡Precisamente por eso ha de ser más sagrado para nosotros el pensamiento de nuestra antigua amistad! Existe probablemente una tremenda curva y órbita estelar invisible en la que nuestros caminos y metas, tan distintos como son, puede que estén incluidos como pequeños tramos, ¡elevémonos hacia ese pensamiento! Pero nuestra vida es demasiado breve y nuestra vista demasiado débil como para que podamos ser más que amigos en el sentido de aquella sublime posibilidad. Creamos, pues, en nuestra amistad estelar, aun en el caso de que tuviéramos que ser enemigos sobre la tierra

It doesn’t seem like Christmas. I cannot say just why. I see the gifts and mistletoe and snowflakes falling from the sky. It doesn’t feel like Christmas. Though snow is on the ground. I watch old Rudolph, Frosty too. I serve hot cocoa all around. But still it doesn’t feel like Christmastime. There’s something missing, something more sublime. My heart tells me this holiday was meant to make me feel something deeper, something warm and real. It doesn’t sound like Christmas. The air is filled with noise. I hear a thousand loud requests yet see unhappy girls and boys. It doesn’t feel like Christmas. Though Santa’s on his way. So why this dullness in my heart as if it’s just another day? It really doesn’t feel like Christmastime. There’s something missing, something more sublime. My heart tells me this holiday was meant to make me feel something deeper, something warm and real. I close my eyes, I bow my head, and drop down to my knees. I talk to God and bear my soul. At length, my spirit warms with peace. It feels much more like Christmas. My heart o’er flows with love. I look at you through caring eyes, the way God sees from up above. It surely is like Christmas. Good will pervades my soul. For Christ was born in Bethlehem to ransom all; my joy is full. It’s starting now to feel like Christmastime. My heart is new, my outlook more sublime. I’ll love the world as God loves me and practice charity. Help and comfort, share with those in need, and it will feel like Christmastime indeed.

However, Rothschild was easily the most scientific collector of his age, though also the most regrettably lethal, for in the 1890s he became interested in Hawaii, perhaps the most temptingly vulnerable environment Earth has yet produced. Millions of years of isolation had allowed Hawaii to evolve 8,800 unique species of animals and plants. Of particular interest to Rothschild were the islands’ colorful and distinctive birds, often consisting of very small populations inhabiting extremely specific ranges. The tragedy for many Hawaiian birds was that they were not only distinctive, desirable, and rare—a dangerous combination in the best of circumstances—but also often heartbreakingly easy to take. The greater koa finch, an innocuous member of the honeycreeper family, lurked shyly in the canopies of koa trees, but if someone imitated its song it would abandon its cover at once and fly down in a show of welcome. The last of the species vanished in 1896, killed by Rothschild’s ace collector Harry Palmer, five years after the disappearance of its cousin the lesser koa finch, a bird so sublimely rare that only one has ever been seen: the one shot for Rothschild’s collection. Altogether during the decade or so of Rothschild’s most intensive collecting, at least nine species of Hawaiian birds vanished, but it may have been more. Rothschild was by no means alone in his zeal to capture birds at more or less any cost. Others in fact were more ruthless. In 1907 when a well-known collector named Alanson Bryan realized that he had shot the last three specimens of black mamos, a species of forest bird that had only been discovered the previous decade, he noted that the news filled him with “joy.

Physicians of the Soul and Pain. All preachers of morality, as also all theologians, have a bad habit in common: all of them try to persuade man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final, radical cure is necessary. And because mankind as a whole has for centuries listened too eagerly to those teachers, something of the superstition that the human race is in a very bad way has actually come over men: so that they are now far too ready to sigh; they find nothing more in life and make melancholy faces at each other, as if life were indeed very hard to endure. In truth, they are inordinately assured of their life and in love with it, and full of untold intrigues and subtleties for suppressing everything disagreeable, and for extracting the thorn from pain and misfortune. It seems to me that people always speak with exaggeration about pain and misfortune, as if it were a matter of good behaviour to exaggerate here: on the other hand people are intentionally silent in regard to the number of expedients for alleviating pain; as for instance, the deadening of it, feverish flurry of thought, a peaceful position, or good and bad reminiscences, intentions, and hopes, — also many kinds of pride and fellow-feeling, which have almost the effect of anaesthetics: while in the greatest degree of pain fainting takes place of itself. We understand very well how to pour sweetness on our bitterness, especially on the bitterness of our soul; we find a remedy in our bravery and sublimity, as well as in the nobler delirium of submission and resignation. A loss scarcely remains a loss for an hour: in some way or other a gift from heaven has always fallen into our lap at the same moment — a new form of strength, for example: be it but a new opportunity for the exercise of strength! What have the preachers of morality not dreamt concerning the inner 'misery' of evil men! What lies have they not told us about the misfortunes of impassioned men! Yes, lying is here the right word: they were only too well aware of the overflowing happiness of this kind of man, but they kept silent as death about it; because it was a refutation of their theory, according to which happiness only originates through the annihilation of the passions and the silencing of the will! And finally, as regards the recipe of all those physicians of the soul and their recommendation of a severe radical cure, we may be allowed to ask: Is our life really painful and burdensome enough for us to exchange it with advantage for a Stoical mode of living, and Stoical petrification? We do not feel sufficiently miserable to have to feel ill in the Stoical fashion!

A life of detachment from greed and desires allows a person to appreciate the truly marvelous part of being alive. I cannot acquire the most sublime pleasures of life with money, force, or industry. I must learn to listen to the song of the wind, rejoice in the drumming patter of fine rain falling in a leafy forest, and delight in witnessing the coming of autumn when the leaves turn into orange and red flames. I seek sincerity of being. I hope to find comfort in a modest meal and cultivate joy by witnessing the birthing and playfulness of the young. I am no longer interested in the practical matters that businesspeople attend, exhibit no attentive awareness of political, cultural, or social affairs, and do not wish to inject myself into the warring conflicts of world.

The Bechdel test isn't enough for me anymore. This is not about a feminist statement. I am just bored to tears with men's stories. No matter what they try to tell you, the experience and stories of men are not universal. And I feel like I have read and seen them all. Everything is about men. I have seen men in every single imaginable situation from the sublime to the truly ridiculous. And I am hungry for women's stories. I want to hear our voices, know our history, sing our songs. Men bore me to tears. Give me women.

The title of this work in Hebrew begins with “The Song of Songs,” which means “the best song” or “the sublime song.”  The title continues with “The Song of Songs, which is ‘to/of’ Solomon” that produces the English title “Song of Solomon.”  The Hebrew of the book, much like the Psalms and the book of Job, does not allow for precise dating (Murphy, 1992, 150).  The book is a collection of Hebrew love songs and Solomon’s many wives, and the mention of his name in the book accounts for his association with this book. 

At the end of the scene, when Kathy kisses Don, Cosmo objects, thereby provoking Kathy to kiss him as well, to which he responds with girlish abashment (the exchange replays the part of “Good Mornin’” when Kathy sits first on Don’s knee, then on Cosmo’s). 2.5 2.6 2.7 Yet Don and Kathy do not yet engage fully as romantic partners, which becomes clear during the following number, Kelly’s famous solo rendition of the title song, “Singin’ in the Rain,” introduced by his deliberately isolating himself (kissing Kathy good night and then waving off the cab driver). Alone on the rain-drenched sound stage (assuming we have learned to recognize it as such from “You Were Meant for Me”), he clarifies the MERM-related function of such effects, which seem in themselves to demand that he sing. The coordination of MERM and Hollywood-style special effects is particularly close in this number, as he soon leaves the song behind, first to explore the sets and props conveniently at his disposal, and then to match the music’s crescendo with an expansive embrace of the larger space. Here, the camera cranes outward, and Kelly breaks through into a moment of “dancing-sublime,” when his dancing seems either to revert or to come full circle, returning to the primitive urge that gave it birth (thus his stomping and jumping in the puddle like an adolescent boy).34 But the number, through its supreme narcissism, actually does more to inhibit than to advance the plot.

I rolled around and hit my face to wake myself up, but the pain proved that everything was real - because pain is another word for reality. The surfaces were hard, indeed. My eyes were wide open and lucid, but fear had deformed everything, it had driven me into the hallucination and delirium. I stood up, shook the industrial refuse from my clothes, and went back, my heart beating more strongly than it should have, to the door gaping open in the great building's wall. I knew full well that on the outside, the building was perfectly rectangular, that there was no way for the door to open into a room, and yet it led into a virtual depth, as inexplicable as the depth of a photograph, or the depths of perspective that create a third, and false, dimension in paintings on a wall. If you could go inside a trompe l'oeil mural, you wouldn't descend into its fraudulent depths, you would only get smaller as you moved along unseen lines of perspective. You wouldn't move through constantly changing spaces, with porphyry arches and columns and unintelligible Biblical images opening and closing behind you; rather, they would change their shapes constantly, rectangles would become parallelograms and trapezoids, the arcs of circles would change into hyperbolas, and circle into ellipses, becoming thinner and thinner as they tried to look deeper and farther away. I often thought that the world, along its three dimensions, is an equally deceiving trompe l'oeil for the infinitely more complex eye of our mind, with its two cerebral hemispheres taking in the world at slightly different angles, such that, by combining rational analysis and mystical sensibility, speech and song, happiness and depression, the abject and the sublime, it will make the amazing rosebud of the fourth dimension open before us, with its pearly petals, with its full depth, with its cubic surface, with its hypercubic volume. As though an embryo didn't grow in its mother's womb but arrived, from far away, and only the illusion of perspective made it seem to grow, like a wayfarer approaching along an empty road. A wayfarer who, after he passes through the iliac portal, continues his illusory rise, first an infant, then a child, then an adolescent, and in the end, when he is face-to-face with you and looks you in the eyes, he smiles at you like a friend from the other side of the mirror, having found you again, at last.

The reason for this extended look at Covenant’s song is that it typifies a postmillennial approach to the sublime in industrial music. The sublime exposes the limits of one’s perception by markedly exceeding them. Classically, the human response to the sublime is a blend of awe and terror. The discussion here isn’t whether listening to this music actually produces sublime experiences; such encounters likely depend more on the listener than on the music. Instead, the point here is that the sublime as a topic is an important one to industrial music; as an act of revealing heretofore unknown limits by exceeding them, we might understand it as dérive, or even as shock, and certainly as part of the industrial legacy.

The Church and the World walked far apart on the changing shore of time; The World was singing a giddy song, the Church a hymn sublime. "Come give me your hand," said the merry World, "and walk with me this way," But the good Church hid her snowy hand, and solemnly answered, "Nay; I will not give you my hand at all, and I will not walk with you; Your way is the way of eternal death, and your words are all untrue." "Nay, walk with me a little space," said the World with a kindly air, The road I walk is a pleasant road, and the sun shines always there. Your way is narrow and thorny and rough, while mine is flowery and smooth; Your lot is sad with reproach and toil, but in rounds of joy I move. My way, you can see, is a broad, fair one, and my gate is high and wide; There is room enough for you and me, and we'll travel side by side." Half shyly the Church approached the World, and gave him her hand of snow; And the false World grasped it, and walked along, and whispered in accents low, "Your dress is too simple to please my taste; I have gold and pearls to wear; Rich velvets and silks for your graceful form, and diamonds to deck your hair." The Church looked down at her plain white robes, and then at the dazzling World, And blushed as she saw his handsome lip with a smile contemptuous curled; "I will change my dress for a costlier one," said the Church with a smile of grace; Then her pure white garments drifted away, and the World gave in their place Beautiful satins, and fashionable silks, and roses and gems and pearls; And over her forehead her bright hair fell, and waved in a thousand curls. So they of the Church and they of the World . journeyed closely, hand and heart, And none but the Master, who knows all, could discern the two apart. Then the Church sat down at her ease and said, "I am rich and in goods increased; I have need of nothing, and naught to do, But to laugh and dance and feast.

Foes I sniff, when I have less to shout or murmur. Pals alone enormous sounds downward & up bring real. Loss, deaths, terror. Over & out, beloved: thanks for cabbage on my wounds: I'll feed you how I feel:-- of avocado moist with lemon, yea formaldehyde & rotting sardines O in our appointed time I would I could a touch more fully say my countless mind. The senses are below, which in this air sublime do I repudiate. But foes I sniff! My nose in all directions! I be so brave I creep into an Arctic cave for the rectal temperature of the biggest bear, hibernating -- in my left hand sugar. I totter to the lip of the cliff.

In the great orchestra we call life, you have an instrument and a song, and you owe it to God to play them both sublimely.

One sublime example of a song winging in from the ether is “Happy.” We did that in an afternoon, in only four hours, cut and done. At noon it had never existed. At four o’clock it was on tape. It was no Rolling Stones record. It’s got the name on it, but it was actually Jimmy Miller on drums, Bobby Keys on baritone and that was basically it. And then I overdubbed bass and guitar. We were just waiting for everybody to turn up for the real sessions for the rest of the night and we thought, we’re here; let’s see if we can come up with something. I’d written it that day. We got something going, we were rocking, everything was set up and so we said, well, let’s start to work it down and then we’ll probably hit it with the guys later. I decided to go on the five-string with the slide and suddenly there it was. Just like that. By the time they got there, we had it. Once you have something, you just let it fly.

I'd lost myself in that haze, too, now that I think about it. I'd forgotten all else, when we jammed. It was sublime in there. I felt timeless. Thoughtless. Borderless. Made of nothing but air and music.

A realm that is beautiful and spiritual, sustaining and transforming- we take for granted those attitudes toward the wild, but they were all but unknown in the West before the Deists and Romantics. Instead the wild was generally seen as loathsome and hideous, fearsome and threatening, desolate and evil and devilish. Hence, romantic and deist thought represents a transformation in our relationship to the natural world so profound it is difficult now to imagine it. Alexander von Humboldt was an international superstar, and his hugely influential science dispensed with God or the divine and proposed that romantic awe in the face of sublime wilderness derives from our “communion with nature” as a magisterial presence, “a unity in diversity of phenomena; a harmony, blending together all created things, one great whole animated by the breath of life.” Humboldt’s revolutionary ideas…were transformative for Thoreau, and for Walt Whitman, who kept Humboldt’s books on his desk as he wrong “Song of Myself.

I feel that instinctive, mysterious connection can have a deeper impact on the psyche of the listener. It feels as if it connects to the listener in a different way, as if we have stumbled upon the song and its implicit meaning together. There is a sense of discovery, shared and binding, that creates that sublime and baffling moment between the artist and the listener.

The Journey Within" In the depths of the soul's abyss, The journey begins, in quiet bliss. Seeking truth in the depths below, Illumination's gentle glow. Through the darkness, light will shine, Liberation's touch, so sublime. Transcendence found in the depths within, Awakening hearts, where love begins. The journey within, a sacred art, A path to enlightenment, to the heart. In the depths of the soul's abyss, Liberation's song finds its kiss.

While there are already compilations on both Music5 and the Arts,6 numerous passages in the Writings refer to the Word of God as a melody. A search through the Bahá’í Writings reveals a multitude of passages where the Word of God is described as music being warbled by such creatures as the Mystic Dove, the Dove of Truth or of Utterance, the Nightingale of Paradise or of Holiness, the Bird of Heaven, of Eternity, or of Holiness, the Spirit of God, or sung by His wondrous, His sublime, His all-compelling, His clear, and most eloquent Voice.

From somewhere in the garden came the sound of a magpie singing, and a thousand days of childhood arrived with it. Jess glanced to her right and spotted the black-and-white bird perched atop the statue in the middle of the pond. There were magpies in England, too--- Jess had seen them often on the Heath--- but although they shared a name, they were different from their antipodean cousins: smaller, neater, prettier, and without the eerily sublime song. This magpie was looking directly at her. Jess tilted her head, watching the bird as he watched her. Suddenly, he spread his wings and flew away. She crossed the turning circle toward the lawn. The grass was still damp with dew, even though the sun was rising fast, and cool shadows stretched toward the harbor. Jess reached the edge of the pond and followed the line of its curved rim until the elegant stone lady was directly before her, kneeling as she always had, arms folded above her head, face bowed to gaze at the goldfish and lilies.

In the German and French pensions, which twenty-five years ago were crowded with American mothers and their daughters who had crossed the seas in search of culture, one often found the mother making real connection with the life about her, using her inadequate German with great fluency, gaily measuring the enormous sheets or exchanging recipes with the German Hausfrau, visiting impartially the nearest kindergarten and market, making an atmosphere of her own, hearty and genuine as far as it went, in the house and on the street. On the other hand, her daughter was critical and uncertain of her linguistic acquirements, and only at ease when in the familiar receptive attitude afforded by the art gallery and opera house. In the latter she was swayed and moved, appreciative of the power and charm of the music, intelligent as to the legend and poetry of the plot, finding use for her trained and developed powers as she sat "being cultivated" in the familiar atmosphere of the classroom which had, as it were, become sublimated and romanticized. I remember a happy busy mother who, complacent with the knowledge that her daughter daily devoted four hours to her music, looked up from her knitting to say, "If I had had your opportunities when I was young, my dear, I should have been a very happy girl. I always had musical talent, but such training as I had, foolish little songs and waltzes and not time for half an hour's practice a day." The mother did not dream of the sting her words left and that the sensitive girl appreciated only too well that her opportunities were fine and unusual, but she also knew that in spite of some facility and much good teaching she had no genuine talent and never would fulfill the expectations of her friends. She looked back upon her mother's girlhood with positive envy because it was so full of happy industry and extenuating obstacles, with undisturbed opportunity to believe that her talents were unusual. The girl looked wistfully at her mother, but had not the courage to cry out what was in her heart: "I might believe I had unusual talent if I did not know what good music was; I might enjoy half an hour's practice a day if I were busy and happy the rest of the time. You do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed! I am simply smothered and sickened with advantages. It is like eating a sweet dessert the first thing in the morning.

This is the reason of an appearance very frequent in madmen; that they remain whole days and nights, sometimes whole years, in the constant repetition of some remark, some complaint, or song; which having struck powerfully on their disordered imagination, in the beginning of their frenzy, every repetition reinforces it with new strength, and the hurry of their spirits, unrestrained by the curb of reason, continues it to the end of their lives.

I pored over them,” says he, “driving my cart or walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noticing the true, tender or sublime, from affectation and fustian.

When your heart, mind, and soul cannot control or refuse the desire to create a sound, or lyric, or rhythm, and you are helpless against the burning impulse to purge these inner demons, you are forever committed to a lifetime of chasing the next song. If it weren't such a sublime affliction, it could very well be considered a curse.

Ezra remembered the first time he heard Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia.” On a frantic high, he named his new Doberman pinscher puppy Tunisia (RIP). He ate at a local Tunisian restaurant exclusively for six months. He was ready to drop everything and relocate to Tunisia. That was the transcendent power of a song! The really good ones could rearrange the topography of your soul. It was what drove a musician’s sublime hunger.