Romantic Inspiration"Out of Africa" is one of the movies I most admire. Karen Blixen was her own woman at a time before it was in fashion. She lived her life her own way. Two of the wonderful poems she quoted in that movie are included here for your enjoyment. Her parting toast when leaving Africa for the last time was "For many a rose-lilt maiden and many a lightfoot lad."
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"I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills..." ~Isak Dinesen Sea Cottage
The real Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen, how beautiful she was!
“With Rue My Heart is Laden”
With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.
By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid,
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.
By A. E. Housman
"When I Was One-and-Twenty"
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
By A.E. Housman
