/lit/ - Literature

Procrastination is my lifeblood, but no moreso than that of the sleeping beauty in the hospital bed so many miles away, the one that captivates my professor's attention. Presentations, he says, are to be postponed until the proverbial prince (this time named "Sheer Luck") should favor her with a soft kiss. This or the grave, is her end, I fear. A poor thanksgiving for a man like him. Yet here I am, barely touched by their lives, his daughter a tangent on my life's circle. I lie, half-naked on my bed, dared into this retrospect by words on my laptop, propped into proper prose position by my knee. As I lie here, I think of them, think of the essay I should be completing, thinking of the compassion that I lack. Or is this compassion? Is that I am dwelling upon them some lesser form of pity? Tears I lack, but words I have aplenty.
Does she know that this temporary epitaph will exist? Words carved into the sand of a beach, but the waves of other words will lap it away, and her with it. So many miles away, a woman sleeps. I do not know her, nor will I ever, but our lives touched for one instant on this webpage. I look out my window into the night, and wonder if she is yet escaped from her body, no more permanent than words carved into the sand.

If you could have any book cover or book illustration made into a poster (of any size) what would it be? I'd have some stuff from Through the Looking Glass, except that the artist made Alice's face odd in a lot of the illustrations.

I've been trying to read Paradise Lost, and it's really excellent, but sometimes the old, old style English is really hard for me to decipher. I know there are a few modern english translations, but they are all physical books, or need a password to get more than a sample of. anyone have a PDF or something similar so that i can get down on a modern english version of Paradise Lost for free?

Gustave Dore.

Lucifer dives from the Heavens above,
Down to the oceans and gardens and sand,
Borne on the wings of a Demon, not Dove,
To play the snake in the downfall of man.

Warped by ambition and cruelty black,
His jealousy driving his mind and wings,
To bring the innocence of man to wrack,
And befoul the good earth with vicious things.

The wind slashes at his once perfect skin,
Turns it to scales, makes slits of his eyes,
Now a stranger to his angelic kin,
The Morning Star darkened in his new guise.

His armor cracks and crumbles to ashes,
His toes become claws, his fingers now talons,
His neck becomes long, as the wind slashes,
His true goal to spill blood by the gallons.

No more horrific was an event contrived,
Than when the Morning Star, Lucifer dived.