There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is now as it hath been of yore; --
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall love thee better after death.
* ++++ @))% to be continued (desiderata) , ended here temporarily at 12.01am on a new day.
NOTE: I had to take a break as I was interrupted by an official call to describe my script for this Love Story. The Ministry of Cultural Environment and Language Purity said there were a lot of "cuts" to be made as they are "deemed to be unsuitable" for Malaysian audience. The officials were polite at the meeting that dragged on for hours, and despite my protestations, they wanted me to edit out almost all the four-letter words, like love, hate, hell and heck, and bang as in hitting hard, and some F-words like fire as in fire up, fake as in putting on an act, and another word, f... that rhymes with well. You ask me why? I don't know, and if I compared my vocabulary and descritions with D.H. Lawrence in Lady Chatterley's Lover, mine was nowhere even near.
To cut a long narrative short, I had to oblige the Ministry's censorship board. Sepet's director Yasmin must consider herself lunck, only ordered to have eight cuts, amounting to les than ten seconds? (I hope I remember right.) My love story had to be chopped mercilessly, because the officials believe my story had to much "lurid" details of natural acts that were best left in the bedroom. Otherwide, the Mat Sodeng squad might have a reason to be resurrected, and that is not good -- which I do nod in agreement.
So my surviving lines, which also end the MyRealFirstLoveStory follows, with apologies to my fans, out there:
F
O
O
L
S
rush in, where wise men never roam,
But wise men never fall in love,
So how would they
K
N
O
W?
PS: Dr Watson: What was that all about just before the interrution -- *++++@))%?
Sherlock: * is for 1; ++++ is for 4; and @ is for 2; ) for 0, and ) for 0 again, and % for 5 --
the respective lower and upper cases in your key-board. Elementary, my friend.
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