Poetry worth quoting

I'm reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. Here is Sonnet VI:

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore--
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

In other news, there is enough snow outside that the bottom step of the porch has disappeared.

Things I love

I am constantly in awe of the enormous amount of love people have for the Nova Project. Nova is no mere school, and it's not the nostalgic kind of love, not a glossed over fondness for "the good old days" of high school, remembered with all its flaws and all its good points included. People love Nova more than it is possible to explain--you have to hear them speak when their school is threatened with something potentially harmful, it has to be shown, not told. Nova changes people's lives, and while the difference in my own personal experience between middle school and high school is not as extreme as some people's, I love it as much as anyone.

I love snow, too. In my entire life I've never seen the snow last so long; Seattle is never this cold for this long. And it's supposed to snow more tonight and tomorrow, too, and next weekend. I have to admit I'm kind of hoping tomorrow is a snow day, despite the fact that I just went on a spiel about who much I love school. I can't deny I'd like to spend the day lying around my house watching the snow, drinking tea, and reading. I've got Grendel to read, and The Beans of Egypt, Maine, and Emma. Plus all my DailyLit books, This Side of Paradise, The Awakening, and Sonnets from the Portuguese. Not to mention all the books floating around that I'm in the middle of--Five Children and It, Letters of Virginia Woolf, A Book of One's Own, Mansfield Park, and no doubt countless others. There should really be more hours in the day.

I am essentially finished applying to college, apart from the actually submitting (and paying fees) of the applications. That is rather excellent.