Grief & Loss

“A blossom yet unsmelt, <br> A tender shoot unpinched, <br> A gem uncut, <br> Untasted, fresh-fermented honey-wine, <br> The fruit of proper actions <br> Still intact— <br> A beauty without fault or flaw.”

“On a day — alack the day! —<br>Love, whose month is ever May,<br>Spied a blossom passing fair<br>Playing in the wanton air”

“We have watered the trees that blossom in the summer-time. Now let's sprinkle those whose flowering-time is past. That will be a better deed, because we shall not be working for a reward.”

“Grief must be shared to be endured.”

“The emperor who ‘fiddled while Rome burned’, Nero was the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty that took Rome from Republic to one-man rule. Raised amidst violence and tyranny, he ruled with ludicrous vanity, demented whimsy and inept despotism. Few mourned his abdication and death amidst the chaos that he himself had created.”

“Old Mathews drank to drown sorrow, which is the strongest swimmer in the world.”

“..the works of Mozart. They create a welcome pause amidst the storms of our inner life, a vision of consolation and hope, but we hear them like sounds of another, vanished and essential unfamiliar age. Clashing discords, loss of equilibrium..”