Bright Star; or a Film about Keats by Jane Campion

So I just read the review for Jane Campion’s Bright Star and from what the New York Times’ A. O. Scott says this should be a killer flick; for lit lovers that is. Here is a link to the review: http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/movies/16bright.html?th&emc=th

I am guessing the only place in Philadelphia for me to see it is at one of the Ritzes. Anyways this might be a spectacular 2 hours of viewing, now if only I could find a date.

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

A letter from Keats at the Rosenbach Museum

I dearly wanted to go see this over Valentine’s Day weekend but being the lazy bum I am didn’t I didn’t make it over there.  Here is the link to their website where you can find more about the exhibit and other exhibits such as the Maurice Sendak one.

http://www.rosenbach.org

To Some Ladies

What though while the wonders of nature exploring,
    I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend;
Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring,
    Bless Cynthia’s face, the enthusiast’s friend:

Yet over the steep, whence the mountain stream rushes,
    With you, kindest friends, in idea I rove;
Mark the clear tumbling crystal, its passionate gushes,
    Its spray that the wild flower kindly bedews.

Why linger you so, the wild labyrinth strolling?
    Why breathless, unable your bliss to declare?
Ah! you list to the nightingale’s tender condoling,
    Responsive to sylphs, in the moon beamy air.

’Tis morn, and the flowers with dew are yet drooping,
    I see you are treading the verge of the sea:
And now! ah, I see it—you just now are stooping
    To pick up the keep-sake intended for me.

If a cherub, on pinions of silver descending,
    Had brought me a gem from the fret-work of heaven;
And smiles, with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending,
    The blessings of Tighe had melodiously given;

It had not created a warmer emotion
    Than the present, fair nymphs, I was blest with from you
Than the shell, from the bright golden sands of the ocean
    Which the emerald waves at your feet gladly threw.

For, indeed, ’tis a sweet and peculiar pleasure,
    (And blissful is he who such happiness finds,)
To possess but a span of the hour of leisure,
    In elegant, pure, and aerial minds.

 

John Keats (1795-1821)