On Echoes

Echos, she says. Echos. I've heard the best way to overcome Writers Block is to write about the most common, random thing you can think of- as much as possible. ...but echoes?! What do I know about echoes, except they echo?

From the most distant shadows of my mind (In a disorderly heap of thousands of proofs, infinitums, basidiospores, ablatives of separation, Demosthenes, and Macedonians...), I hear the whisper of an echo... Somewhere in this past week, I've heard the word "echo". All I can remember is that it struck me in a peculiar way.

--Later.--

I won't bother telling how I happened upon this- it would take up a whole post... but it is undoubtedly where my whispered echo came from. One of the most admirable poems I've ever read.

Solitude
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.