Drastic Poetic Imagery in Barret Browning's Aurora Leigh

hello all. i sincerely apologize for my lack of writing, but truthfully, i jsut have not been compelled of late. i seem to have lost that urge to regurgitate my thoughts into cyberspace. RR put it best when she said, "girls like Shira are no more". i would add, it is shira who is no more and with her, the rest of her ilk have ceased to exist. it is tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. and a new era has seemingly begun without our even knowing it.

my dear friend and literary companion aliza, who sticks by me during even the most exhausting of disagreements with a certain IJL (true name shall remain hidden for obvious reasons...we'd have to take the J out then wouldn't we?) particularly pertaining to the relationship between mathematics and poetry (see David Berlinski, beginning of A Tour of the Calculus for an eloquent and articulate argument for my side) forwarded this lovely piece from Elizabeth B. B.'s Aurora Leigh, a work that was quite innovative and perhaps one might even venture to say daring, for her time period. I hope you enjoy it!

" I played at art, made thrusts with a toy-sword,
Amused the lads and maidens.
Came a sigh
Deep, hoarse with resolution,–I would work
To better ends, or play in earnest. 'Heavens,
I think I should be almost popular
If this went on !'–I ripped my verses up,
And found no blood upon the rapier's point:
The heart in them was just an embryo's heart,
Which never yet had beat, that it should die:
Just gasps of make-believe galvanic life;
Mere tones, inorganised to any tune. " (Elizabeth Barret Browning's Aurora Leigh)