The Importance of Being Artistic

Okay, so, I tried using the website but I couldn't control the mouse for anything. So, I decided to draw it on my own instead. Here we are!

So, I borrowed inspiration from the lovely internet to get into the late 19th/early 20th century fashions. I think Gwen's outfit is probably a bit more "period", but I think Cecily is a bit more of a "frilly" kind of girl.

Jack and Algernon

In the style of Percy Bysshe Shelley

Time

There’s a certain untapped majesty
To this great urban sprawl.
Hanging steel beams from the sky
Seems not much work at all.
Sunlight gleams off interstate
Upon each rusted rose.
But all this praise has come too late
As my unfinished prose.

An age before in times long past,
When logic science was
The first to be considered last
And there truly was no cause,
When the gods still walked the earth
And beauty filled the air,
When humanity still had worth
And love lived without a care

Life first began in Eden
(Or so by the church we’re told),
But quickly spread to even
Land still yet unsold.
Purple mountain’s majesty
And amber waves of grain,
Land that’s kept so chastely
Might never be found again.

While war raged across Europe
(Or maybe science, religion, art),
Across the sea was caught up
In the silence of their heart.
We missed out on some eras
On Enlightenment, Romance;
We largely forget what once was
With our Industrial stance.

But in this land we’re free,
And we can think as well.
Just because we’re young, you see,
Doesn’t mean that time won’t tell.
Our history yields greats,
Immortalized and loved.
Who cares about the dates?
It’s this country I’m proud of.

This poem is an imitation of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s writing style. Its subject matter is based in part off of “Ozymandias” and how time can wash away things that once seemed mighty or great. After learning about solely American history for most of my educational life, learning about things like the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Romantic Movement as they occurred in Europe kind of makes me feel left out. I know we didn’t totally lack all of these things (I know we had a Romantic Movement too and that our entire system of government is derived from the Age of Enlightenment), but America is so young in comparison to the European countries, that it feels like we ‘missed out’ on a lot more. The era that I really consider ‘ours’ is the Industrial Revolution, which changed everything about America. Everywhere we go now is pretty much an urban sprawl; I’ve never been to somewhere where you couldn’t hear car horns beeping. I consider this a direct result of Americans’ zeal for industry. I decided focusing on this aspect of America could work in the poem. In it, the narrator mourns the loss of nature in favor of urbanity and tries to reconcile it with the odd beauty of what the country has become. However, it also considers what we as a country have missed, due to our isolation from the rest of the continents. “Ozymandias” influenced its writing because of the ‘ababcdcd…’ rhyme scheme as well as its consideration of how time changes.

Link: Okay, so I've spent forty-five minutes trying to format and embed the Soundcloud thing, and it isn't working so before I completely lose my mind, I'll just post the link instead and hope it works.

http://soundcloud.com/danielle-lynd/time