...original: "Free Gun Huntress", part ii...

Her story sort of started here, before.
...
The trilling pulled her out of sleep.  She had the blue ambient on tonight, it bathed the entirety of the cabin with its flat light.  She took a swig of the purple syrup.  She was sleeping hard, but the purple didn't allow for dreams.  The warm fuzziness was pulled all over her body, but no dreams.  She knew this as she slept and it nagged her.  The trilling was the last of the annoyances.  She gestured in a unique way that had the lights in the cabin go on and a flash of pure oxygen to help her wake.

She pulled off her covers, made from cerybian silk.  It was the only luxury she really ever bought outside of ships and guns.  Her body teetered as she made her way to the console.  Without being fully awake, her hands lumbered all over the screen, but she got there.  The trilling stopped and Gustiv popped on.  His eyes rolled over her body.  She was nude.

"Hey.  Never saw you like that before."

"I'm sure we can both be professional.  You called me out of sleep."

"I'll defer a joke to your memory about what I'll be dreaming of."  He paused for a laugh he knew he would've gotten with anyone else in this galaxy.  "Ok.  Right.  So, I have the data you requested for Cam.  The best I could muster was some holographic stills from a few ports.  A lot of security in other places is strictly local.  It'll take time."

"Where then?"

Gustiv was pushing packets as he spoke, "Last known was three days ago in Lopare.  It was transferring transports.  Had a lot of credits on it, letting everyone know.  It is desperate."  She mulled that over a bit.  That was good intel.  The more eyes on it, the more it thinks nothing will happen in the bright of day.

"Good.  I'll transfer what I owe you.  You get me something within a day or twelve cycles, and I'll transfer you four times the amount.  Also, don't have Ber sending anything anymore, we're done: she and I."

"20,000.  The bounty must be solid.  Affirmative on Ber.  Done for both of us then, I'll let her know."  She caught his eyes roll over her breasts for a twentieth time, rolling her eyes in response.  Grow up.  He shut down.

With the packets in her possession she spooled up the AI, Richie.  He hummed as he booted up, it increased until it was at a conversational level.  "Howdy, miss."

"Richie, have new data to correlate Cam Eyres location.  I need you to start chewing on this against where I left off six hours ago.  I would ignore the last two hours beyond that, my mind was drifting.  I'll be working in tandem."

"Yes, mum."  The AI pulsed to acknowledge that it was working, but offline.  It sounded to her like a bass-filled swallow.

In the meantime, she scrutinized the pattern of Cam's movements.  They were furtive, but meaningful.  The bounty was for alive, so she had to think ahead of it.  He was Artharian, so he was limited to very specific zones, necessarily amphibic.  A wet place, warm.  She highlighted those systems in a line of his trajectory.  There were three options.  The faster I close the gap between it's arrival and myself, the faster we close this.  Amphibics can lay at the bottom of some deep chasmic lake and stay there for years.  It was a racist comment, but it was a variable in this equation.

She paused.  There were two other worlds.  She thought of the macro view and the macro statistics.  There were two other worlds that had regions that could sustain it too.

Richie came back into her console as a blurry finger, as if he were raising it politely.  She couldn't get mad at him often.  She acknowledged his question.  "To the finer points of the bounty, I already understand that Cam Eyres is wanted alive to be called as a witness in the prosecution of the Ta'il Syndicate.  However, your report has not specified to what information he holds."

"Relevance?"

"I could then correlate what information it has and to the disposition of travel movements it may take next."

"Exampled?"

"...if it were physical evidence, it may look to a Gridrian Bank for safekeeping.  However, if all is non-physical, the more remote and quickest option will put it in regions that I have overlaid upon your work."  He did it and put a yellow blur on the further options.

"Non-physical."

Richie acknowledged and disappeared again.  *gulp*.  She straightened up and looked at how the transit map looked now.  Too many options.  She got that itch though.  It would do what it knew best, get to a deep pit of a warm, water source and hide.  Hide and disappear and hibernate until it got tired of doing it for decades.

She queried her options against any subterranean water sources that held a consistent ambient temperature of 50Ui.  There was only one.  Only a day and a half.  She culled up Richie from his work and told him of her findings.  "You could possibly get there as it is arriving."

"That's the plan, Richie.  Punch it to Tevaris, top line."

...Raven and her First Case...

Her closest friends, the ones that knew her longest, call her Raven.  Going even further than that: Jason was the one that called her Raven the first time and started the whole thing.  She didn't refuse the name.  (But she would be quick to point out that it was not her that named herself.)

Jason lived four houses down from her, she being smack dab in the middle of Aladdin Street.  He lived closest to the cinder block wall that closed off the cul de sac.  Foot falls were broken into the wall, the kids only having to perform a quick hop up and over to another world that was filled with kids.  On this side of the wall, for Raven, was the weekly Bookmobile.  It was Monday night, but she didn't let the day bring her down: she was going to make it.

Samantha was her given name, and the one she knew much longer than than the moniker given to her.  It was the name mom was most proud of.  She loved calling her all the variants of her name and used them in almost every sentence she could.  There was a lilt on the 's' and the sing song for whatever remained.  Sam.  Sammy.  Samantha.  Sam-Sam.  Sambuco.

She was scaling back down the wall that Monday night, with a handful of books under her arm.  The scaling was more treacherous coming back than going, and even worse at night.  She could fall between the wall and the thin fence.  No one would see her for weeks, she surmised.  And, there was spider webs here and broken blocks of concrete that was thrown over when they completed the wall.  Shoddy she said to herself.

On leaping from the mid-point of the wall facing Aladdin she heard a boy's voice behind her, "Hey."  She instinctively started and pulled back.  The boy's face was hidden by the harsh shadow left by the tungsten lamp hovering above.  She was in plain view.  Samantha wore her hair with a ponytail to the side, askance.  She didn't have time today to brush it back 'right'.  She wore a denim jacket and jeans.  She had neon bangles from the Circle K that was over on Lincoln.  They never carried them again.  Shameful.

Sam had no idea who the boy was at first, but she quickly thought she had seen him when he moved in a few weeks ago...provided this was the boy, "Hey, who are you and why are you hanging out by my wall?"

The boy physically moved back a step and then his shoulders wilted a bit as he chuckled.  "Sorry.  I didn't know what to say."  She adjusted his footing, "You're the one that jumped out of nowhere.  I didn't know what you were."  His voice undulated in the explanation, it must be the truth.  Plus, she was out here climbing walls at 8:30 at night.  He then said, "Raven."

"Huh?"

He pointed to the book, "Edgar Allen Poe.  The Raven."

"Yeah.  Well, there's some others stories too."  She started to walk back down the street toward her house.  She could see her father with the garage open.  The light was streaming onto his truck.  He was timing plugs tonight, "You just move in?"

He walked respectfully apart from her, "Yeah.  Just my mom and I.  Right over here."  He didn't need to point to the house.  She's the one that had seen the sales sign for several months.  She also made it a point to explore the house more than a few times.  The dog door was not locked.  There was always a weird smell when someone moves out.  It was like an old pizzeria.  The Liefs didn't smell, but their German sausages stayed behind and took over.  "How do you like it?"

"S'ok."

"Alright, well I got to go home now."  She realized she hadn't made eye contact with him at all.  Was it rude?  I don't know, she thought.

"Ok.  Bye, Raven."  She could almost see the smirk under the hood.  Whatever, dude.

She didn't say anything out loud and shifted the books in her hand as she approached her house.  She had checked out the Raven, again.  Along with it, she found that the Osburne Book of Ghosts was available...again.   Halloween was months away, but she wanted craft ideas for the house.  Luckily no one took the Good Housekeeping Guide to Halloween.  It had cupcake recipes and some decorations that were simple to make.  Lastly she had Book of Allegorical Tales from Jack Seward, it had a short she enjoyed called Monster.

"Hey Twinkle."  That was her dad's pet name.  It sounded like Twinkie to her girl friends.  She rolled her eyes without him seeing.  It was her dad and she loved him more than any man on Earth.  He didn't say much, but he always knew what to say.  Even Twinkle.  "What books did you get this time?"  He leaned on the truck and wiped his hands.  The hood was closed, so he was done for the night.

"Halloween books."

"Thinking ahead?  We'll go to the craft store this weekend.  I know you ran out of clay.  There's a giant hand drying out in the back."

"You know me."  She said awkwardly.  Her smile crooked and her brown eyes sparkling as she found she was embarrassed for no good reason.  She side-straddled to the door.

Raven.  She didn't even know what the boy really looked like, but he called her Raven.  Twinkle. Sambuco.  Raven, it didn't have a bad ring to it.  She sat at the kitchen table and her mom stole an unsolicited pet of her sandy brown hair.  Mom smoked so the cigarette smell was always on her right hand.  Gross, mom.  Samantha opened the book and committed the ingredients for the dark black cupcakes to memory.  It had black licorice frosting that she started craving badly.

Hm, Raven.

...Books of Comic-Con 2015+Barnes and Noble Events...

Sure, sure - there are plenty of youtube clips burning up the internet for Star Wars and Deadpool, but Comic-Con actually has things there that you can read!  No kidding.  It may surprise you to hear that it was actually first concocted to pitch the new comics for the year.  Huh.  Not anymore, but, here are things off the beaten trail (like books and comics) with barnesandnoble a'bringing some pop-culture treats this entire month.

STAR WARS BOOKS: so, going into SWVII, there are some books and comics to whet the appetite for those wanting something NOW.  Well Veruca darling, look no further...

• July 18th is Star Wars Saturday at your local Barnes and Noble, part of their Pop Culture Month ~ http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/july-18-star-wars-saturday/
• Author Chuck Wendig is releasing SW Aftermath as the new canon while leading into the new film: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/what-happens-next-talking-star-wars-aftermath-with-chuck-wendig/

THE MARTIAN: the blockbuster film was based on Andy Weir's book and available today for reading ~ http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/from-mars-to-hollywood-we-talk-with-andy-weir-at-san-diego-comic-con/

TOKYO GHOST: this hyper stylized comic by writer Rick Remender and artist Sean Murphy imagine a future where distopia is caused by entertainment, lol, it's already here!  https://imagecomics.com/content/view/image-expo-announcement-the-future-is-bleak-in-tokyo-ghost

THE EXPANSE: a new SyFy show is coming to recapture the BSG audience again, can they do it?http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/the-expanse-is-the-show-that-will-rekindle-your-love-for-syfy/

VERTIGO COMICS: Twelve new #1's coming!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTNJuUYybtU

MARVEL COMICS: coming that affect the MCU (Marvel Comic Universe) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9mMJPFA8sM

HANNIBAL LAST SEASON: literary, especially for those that grew up reading Thomas Harris' novels and the chilling titular story that became the best show in the last two years; here's is the trailer for the last season https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loOgfXNs-VI

GROO: any time I can get an excuse to post a Groo the Wanderer cover, I shall, as I saw Sergio Aragones at Wondercon this past year http://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/27-704/Groo-Friends-and-Foes-7

CW LEGENDS OF TOMORROW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4cQ83S_gMM - a great mix of comic panels and live action from the CW's great television line-up.

CHIMICHANGA RECIPE: http://www.cheatsheet.com/life/7-recipes-to-help-satisfy-a-chimichanga-craving.html/?a=viewall

...Study of the Seqoi...The Minister's Preface...

...picking up further into the study of the Seqoi.  Here we pick up with Tekawa's work alongside linguist Dr. Jaxon Nikolai.

Abridged audio notes of Tekawa and Nikolai on Panel 10 Wall 2 through Panel 3 of Wall 4 of the Queen's Temple.

[GT:] The Vizier, Maliq, had started his Narratio Tabulum within the Queen's Temple several years before Seqoi's Fall.  It's primary purpose was simple: to adore the Queen in all aspects and worship her for ages to come.  The peoples of the valley were induced to comply to the wants of the Vizier and had to be the only employ of the Temple and the Cave constructs.  There would not have been much labor in the region, particularly at this time, and we don't have indications from my colleagues that slaves were kept.  At least not in apparent bondage, nor do we have indications that there was spoils of war during much of the Queen's reign (not yet in this narrative, at least).  [At this point, they were about 60% of the way through the Tabulum.]

[JN:] And, as we see variants in the construction of the language, I have a growing opinion that the Vizier is piecing the language as one who had any formal desire to standardize the Seqoi language.  My guess at this point is even the Queen may not have understood the designs that Maliq had started, outside of building a functional structure, perhaps by his use in court.

Key symbols remain fairly consistent, but transitional and conceptional symbols do shift, though Maliq does make repeated attempts to keep the story intact.  At this point in the Tabulum, I feel he has at least one person helping him (dubbed 'Btopon', Russian for 'second').  The language surrounding the Queen are refined from the original block at times, apparently where the Vizier is correcting what Btopon may have originally cut into the stone.  It does settle over time, so they are learning together.

We find this in many early cultures, where the psychology of those struggling with a language, 'feel' their way through it.  Language is organic, no more proof than this.

[GT:] As there was a lack of paper, we assume they used clay, which is plentiful enough in the cave lakes of the region.  The Tabulum would have connected a commonality in language for several years, and more had the Seqoi survived the attacks that ultimately destroyed them.

[JN:] Ironic that Maliq foreshadows this destruction in a similar city that we have yet to find:

"Not unlike the fallen temples of Amarifa, and their limbless statues that no longer reach
They scattered with the stones, as if they were the mountain's bones
Felled by the enemies' triumph

Their eyes turn inward, and the brightness of the stars are lost to them
The frozen winds of the night give them no comfort
The rocks become lesser rocks

And I am alike with out my Queen

I am the empty desert by lack of her embracing arms
The bare stones of the mountain's head
The extinguished fires of the brazier
In the still of the night the animal's rest
But no comfort for I from you"
- P13 W2 to P5 W3

[JN:] Working with an ancient musician team a year later, we pieced parts together in a temporal piece, attributed mostly to Janice Collins:

"The statues laid bare upon the ground, the promise and illusion dead
And so am I
My tears are cold as the nightly wind on the desert sands
No comfort now

I lack you and the stones provide little in your wake
Shattered me
When all is lost and all is gone, memory serves little
And I cry once more"
...

Professor Tekawa and the Lost Civilization of Seqoi

FORWARD
What I relate here is nothing of my own opinion, or is it embellished in any way.  As a historian in the purest sense, we must always look for fact.  Unadulterated fact - not swayed by the opinions of the person, or worst, by the fashions of the contemporary - which are filled with dangers.  Historic half-truths, which are what fashions unabashedly reveal, luckily do not stand the test of time.  As long as there are historians who prove the purpose of their calling and only duly purport a mirror of an age.

Professor of Sociology, Dr. Gale Tekawa, Ph.D. UW Madison, of California State University at Fullerton, outlined a series of lectures as part of her curriculum, "The Curious Pre-Romanticism of the Ancient Seqoi"*, which included several artifacts she acquired in her discoveries of the site in the very early 1980s in the region of south-east (present day) Algeria, about two hundred miles SEE of the city of Tamanrasset.  Dr. Tekawa worked along side Drs. Blake and Willowby, Professors of Archaeology, at the site in its infancy.

The site, first thought to be a derivative culture of the Berber, was discovered by Tamanrasset militia in 1976.  Funding proved a chore for UW at the time, but it was finally meted out by interest by Pan African groups seeking more solidity to studies of Africa as the 'birthplace' of civilization.  [I use quotes very sparingly.  In this case, I seek to use the language of the grant, but flatly point out the disingenuous proposition of the term.]

The site found the three doctors working four weeks out of the year, for several years, as scouting expeditions.  Opportunity was with them each trip, successive discoveries abounded.  [As this is the story of Tekawa's journey, and my interest in her hypothesis, I will merely outline those that are the focus of this paper.]  As monies consolidated for the team, the University felt enough was collected that a full expedition and study could be made for at least the first year.  The doctor's were so excited they left for Africa before formal arrangements were made.

The first year was slow work.  The indigenous peoples of the area proved unreliable so men from Cairo and Baghdad were brought in at three times the amount - but five times the amount of work was had.  The first year was primarily for the archaeologists - they discovered an ancient kingdom that flourished only for a brief period of time thousands of miles west from Mesopotamia.  There were underground lakes and rain-collecting cisterns.  There was some cultivation of barley.  There is evidence of crude metallurgy, but nothing approaching the bronze masterworks that would frame much of the time.

...

It was the discovery of a temple, built intentionally underground, as part of a center of worship where the site took a turn of its own.  Tekawa found there a series of works written in the stone of the chamber that appeared to be an extant story, untouched by time and most elements.  It was crude and it was fragile.  If it was what it could be, it would predate the work of Beowulf by some 1200 years.

As Tekawa turned the next two decades to this work, she sought to turn them into a meaningful whole.  From it she found, not a fictional tale or a religious sect's search for meaning: it was a story of the Queen of the Seqoi, and the Minister that loved her until the temples were toppled by a wandering army sometime in 2435 BC.

It was a tale that possibly alluded to by Dionysius Periegetes in his De situ habitabilis orbis:

in hac regione est oppidum ab antiquis invenimus mortuum

sed melius est, et ex lapide sepulchra, quae superne rotundata sunt Caeli

multis nota picturae et fecit

sed qui apud nos est, non possint?

it was in this region from the ancients that we found a dead city

they preferred the rounded tones of stone and tombs

many a picture and symbol made

but who among us could decipher it?

That began Tekawa's proposition that this kingdom, so infant to other civilizations, masterful of little but the crudest instruments, found purpose in extolling the stories of a man we know little about.  We know that he was in love with the Queen and outlived her.  The man (dubbed Seqoi Alpha, or the Vizier, or Maliq) who saw his own civilization crumble, and a fragment of time that no one could recall but through his story.

...
Upon once of her travels to and from the States, Tekawa had stopped in Spain, to the University of Barcelona, studying the manuscripts and of the symbol the Seqoi Alpha had made.  It was a symbol of a woman, in the crude valuation of a dress, characteristic bosoms, and a disk behind her head.  The waiter of the Spanish tapas bar remarked, Reina?  Queen?  So began the tale of the man who loved Reina, the Queen of the Seqoi, the Single Civilization, the Invenimus Mortuum of Dionysius.
..
* The Seqoi Culture: A Study of Pre-Bronze Time in Their Words, Dr. Gale Tekawa, Azalee Press, 1992

...the edwardianjackal "most" list: "the seven most beautiful women in fiction"...

The "most 7" list looks at those definitive fictional beauties that gave impetus for many writers to commit pen to paper.  Listed with her name, is the author's description, as it serves the purpose best.
7. Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen): although only described in this passage, it is a wonder how Austen's characters find life in each generation.  Elizabeth's beauty is such that it grew upon Darcy and that it was her, with all her flaws, the 'catch' of the family.

"[Darcy] had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware; -- to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable no where, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with."

6. Ligeia (Edgar Allen Poe): The classic gothic beauty may be found in these lines, as well as the desire I have for a beauteous woman who walks in shadow.

MirrorCradle on DeviantArt

"I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into my closed study save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream — an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not of that regular mould which we have been falsely taught to worship in the classical labors of the heathen. “There is no exquisite beauty,” says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the forms and genera of beauty, without some strangeness in the proportion.” Yet, although I saw that the features of Ligeia were not of a classic regularity — although I perceived that her loveliness was indeed “exquisite,” and felt that there was much of “strangeness” pervading it, yet I have tried in vain to detect the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of “the strange.” I examined the contour of the lofty and pale forehead — it was faultless — how cold indeed that word when applied to a majesty so divine! — the skin rivalling the purest ivory, the commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric epithet, “hyacinthine!” I looked at the delicate outlines of the nose — and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection."

5. Rebecca de Winter (Daphne Du Maurier): Rebecca touched everything and everyone in a horror-show of love and desire.  Even after death, her spirit lived on.

"How could we be close when I knew you were always thinking of Rebecca? How could I even ask you to love me when I knew you loved Rebecca still?"
"What are you talking about? What do you mean?" "Whenever you touched me, I knew you were comparing me with Rebecca. Whenever you looked at me or spoke to me, walked with me in the garden, I knew you were thinking, 'This I did with Rebecca. And this and this.' It's true, isn't it?"
"You thought I loved Rebecca? You thought that? I hated her! Oh, I was carried away by her - enchanted by her, as everyone was. And when I was married, I was told that I was the luckiest man in the world. She was so lovely - so accomplished - so amusing. 'She's got the three things that really matter in a wife,' everyone said: 'breeding, brains, and beauty.' And I believed them - completely. But I never had a moment's happiness with her. She was incapable of love, or tenderness, or decency."
"You didn't love her? You didn't love her?"


4. Object of Sonnet 18 (Shakespeare): nothing to add to these words, as the Bard found what young men feel in fancy.

-rainman on DeviantArt

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

3. Roxane (Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand): one of my favorite plays, if anything, for the sumptuous delight that Cyrano is allowed throughout.  Frustrating as well that it is only at the very end do all things come together - but his love for Roxane is exposed.

CYRANO:
All, all, all, whatever
That came to me, e'en as they came, I'd fling them
In a wild cluster, not a careful bouquet.
I love thee! I am mad! I love, I stifle!
Thy name is in my heart as in a sheep-bell,
And as I ever tremble, thinking of thee,
Ever the bell shakes, ever thy name ringeth!
All things of thine I mind, for I love all things;
I know that last year on the twelfth of May-month,
To walk abroad, one day you changed your hair-plaits!
I am so used to take your hair for daylight
That,--like as when the eye stares on the sun's disk,
One sees long after a red blot on all things--
So, when I quit thy beams, my dazzled vision
Sees upon all things a blonde stain imprinted.
ROXANE (agitated): Why, this is love indeed!. . .
CYRANO:
Ay, true, the feeling
Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly
Love,--which is ever sad amid its transports!
Love,--and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion!
I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down,
--E'en though you never were to know it,--never!
--If but at times I might--far off and lonely,--
Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you!
Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,--
A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet,
To understand? So late, dost understand me?
Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting?
Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment!
That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken!
Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest,
I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me
But to die now! Have words of mine the power
To make you tremble,--throned there in the branches?
Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble!
You tremble! For I feel,--an if you will it,
Or will it not,--your hand's beloved trembling
Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!
(He kisses passionately one of the hanging tendrils.)
ROXANE: Ay! I am trembling, weeping!--I am thine!
Thou hast conquered all of me!

MoraruPatricia on DeviantArt

2. Object of She Walks in Beauty (Lord Byron): my favored poem of all.  Byron captures, in both word and meter, the tempered wonder of finding beauty in a woman.  How passionate and quiet it is at the same time.

aufzehengehen on DeviantArt

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

1. Helen (Sappho): "The face that launched a thousand ships."  Helen of Troy is the definitive beauty of which wars began, cities burned, thousands of statues, and thousands of poems dedicated to her honor.  She was the woman, for her time, that gods and men could allude to for all their desires.

A troop of horse, the serried ranks of marchers,A noble fleet, some think these of all on earthMost beautiful. For me naught else regarding Is my beloved.
To understand this is for all most simple,For thus gazing much on mortal perfectinoAnd knowing already what life could give her, Him chose fair Helen,
Him the betrayer of Ilium's honour. The recked she not of adored child or parent,But yielded to love, and forced by her passion, Dared Fate in exile.
Thus quickly is bent the will of that womanTo whom things near and dear seem to be nothing.So mightest thou fail, My Anactoria, If she were with you.
She whose gentle footfall and radiant faceHold the power to charm more than a visionOf chariots and the mail-clad battalions Of Lydia's army.
So must we learn in world made as this oneMan can never attain his greatest desire,[But must pray for what good fortune Fate holdeth, Never unmindful.]

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