A ROMANTIC, ONCE I WAS
till birds did ask me leave their nest
and go among the peopled world
there to beat my breast
and leave them curled
in peace and quiet rest.


As I get further into old age and farther from the romanticism that cursed my early and mid life before science took a strong hold on my imagination and my rational brain received more nourishment than my intuitive brain, I can see how the spirit of the poem, "Song", held my senses fast. Reading a little Tennyson today, I was struck by the melancholy and somber tone of this Romantic's work, and I did get a brief glimpse of what it meant to be the romantic that I was. When I say "romantic" I don't mean it as a synonym for romantic love. I mean to imply the entire death-oriented, religion swallowing, grail-questing, hero-worshiping, pie in the sky, good versus evil seeing mental blob that is the romanticism that drives fundamentalism of all brands to go out and beat their enemies bloody, tilt at windmills and bring down towers with airplanes. I subsume religion under the heading of that romanticism.

If you need further proof, look at the picture of Tennyson.