Lanced Hearts of Lovers & Martyrs

I'm Eric, a young poet who seems to have been swept away in the Romantic Spirit of Beethoven's Symphonies, struck by the philosophies of Plato & the Poets' lyrics, burned for love like the martyrs of Rome, and can see an honest beauty in love & faith.

This blog is dedicated to my passions in Poetry, Literature, History, Philosophy, and Music, along with exploring the beauty and truth in the Christian faith-- how it rebels and transcends the ways of the world and burns it ablaze; preaches it's the Heart that counts, sings how Love endures, and that Truth is a beautiful Bride & hypocrisy a sin. It reveals that love is self-less, death is no end, and that there's no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends.

• Faith & Philosophy
• History (esp. 19th cen.-WWI)
• Poetry & Literature
• Catholicism

• Christ
• St. Justin Martyr
• Socrates
• Victor Hugo
• J.R.R. Tolkien
• Richard Wagner

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"Reason directs those who are truly pious and philosophical to honour and love only what is true, declining to follow traditional opinions, if these be worthless."
-St. Justin Martyr

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  1. lostsplendor:

    Ludwig II | Teaser (2012) (by via)

    If ever there was a reason to learn German. A movie on Bavaria’s ‘Mad Swan King.’ I can only imagine the gratuitous amounts of Wagner it’ll have…

     
     

  2. Favorite Christmas Movie.

    “I hear the mountain birds
    The sound of rivers singing
    A song I’ve often heard
    It flows through me now
    So clear and so loud
    I stand where I am
    And forever I’m dreaming of home
    I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home

    It’s carried in the air
    The breeze of early morning
    I see the land so fair
    My heart opens wide
    There’s sadness inside
    I stand where I am
    And forever I’m dreaming of home
    I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home

    This is no foreign sky
    I see no foreign light
    But far away am I
    From some peaceful land
    I’m longing to stand
    A hand in my hand
    forever I’m dreaming of home
    I feel so alone, I’m dreaming of home”

     
     

  3. My Revenge is Fraternity

    “   …We shall see France arise again, we shall see her retrieve Lorraine, take back Alsace. But will that be all? No… Seize Trier, Mainz, Cologne, Koblenz, the whole of the left bank of the Rhine. And we shall hear France cry out: It’s my turn, Germany, here I am! Am I your enemy? No! I am your sister. I have taken back everything and I give you everything, on one condition, that we shall act as one people, as one family, as one Republic. I shall demolish my fortresses, you will demolish yours. My revenge is fraternity! No more frontiers! The Rhine for everyone! Let us be the same Republic, let us be the United States of Europe, let us be the continental federation, let us be European liberty, let us be universal peace! And now let us shake hands, for we have done one another a service: you have delivered me from my emperor and I have delivered you from yours.”

        —Victor Hugo, ‘My Revenge is Fraternity’, political adress at 1871 peace conferences

    Hugo is possibly the purest example of the Romantic Spirit. The artist turned statesmen to herald the harmony of mankind in which he, as a great artist, always saw great beauty, and dreamed of an epoch of universal peace looming behind the horizon of the 19th Century.

    (Source: gavroche.org)

     
     
  4.    Kaiser Wilhelm II & Tsar Nicholas II in reverse uniform, 1905

       Kaiser Wilhelm II & Tsar Nicholas II in reverse uniform, 1905

     
     
  5. One of the only reparations Bismarck demanded of the French was to surrender the eastern territories of Alsace and Lorraine,leaving a despicably bitter thorn in the French’s hearts. When the signs of the encroaching World War loomed in 1914, the sensible pleads of an eminent disaster were drown out in the streets of France with the cry “Revenge Alsace-Lorraine!” Of course a major morale behind this in the French hearts was that Joan of Arc, the savior of France and symbolic protector from foreign oppression, was born in the small hamlets of Lorraine.

    One of the only reparations Bismarck demanded of the French was to surrender the eastern territories of Alsace and Lorraine,leaving a despicably bitter thorn in the French’s hearts. When the signs of the encroaching World War loomed in 1914, the sensible pleads of an eminent disaster were drown out in the streets of France with the cry “Revenge Alsace-Lorraine!”

    Of course a major morale behind this in the French hearts was that Joan of Arc, the savior of France and symbolic protector from foreign oppression, was born in the small hamlets of Lorraine.

     
     
  6. Otto von Bismarck and Napoleon III after the Battle of Sedan, 1870Painting by Wilhelm Camphausen The Third Napoleon under the clutch of Europe’s second Napoleon.

    Otto von Bismarck and Napoleon III after the Battle of Sedan, 1870
    Painting by Wilhelm Camphausen

    The Third Napoleon under the clutch of Europe’s second Napoleon.

     
     

  7. The Franco-Prussian War

    Otto von Bismarck’s rise of the Prussian Empire led him to the doorstep of the French crown. In a swift and humiliating campaign, the Prussians swept all the way to the gates of Paris within months. Yet this lightening war was nothing more than a show.

    The Prussians left as quick as they advanced— but not before a coronation in the very Hall of Mirrors of Versailles, the palace of the grandest monarchs of Europe, to crown King Wilhelm the first Kaiser, [Caesar] uniting all of Germany under the Prussian Empire.

    A ceremony reminiscent to Napoleon’s in 1804.

     
     
  8. The 2nd French Empire dreaming of faded glories during the defeats of the Franco-Prussian War. Edouard Detaille (1848-1912)La Reve1888Oil on canvasParis, Musée d’Orsay © RMN (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski  ~*~*~ “As to the Germans, they will reap what they have sown. Now they are at the pinnacle of power; they made all of Europe tremble, and they are foolish enought to rejoice at it. It is very dangerous to frighten everyone; we learned it at our own expense; they will learn it in their turn. Because Bismarck has succeeded in his enterprises, they look upon him as a kind of a god; they will not see that this man employed only dishonest means; stragedy, lies, espionage, corruption and violence. Nothing is ever firm that is erected on such a foundation.     ”But to tell all this or nothing to the Germans would come to the same thing; they are intoxicated by their victories, and will only awake when Europe, wearied by their ambition and by their insolence, will rise to bring them to reason; then they will be forced to acknowledge as we have acknoweldged ourselves, that, if strengh sometimes overwhelms right, Justice is eternal.” — The final lines of Brigadier Frederick, a french novel by Erckmann-Chatrian, 1874

    The 2nd French Empire dreaming of faded glories during the defeats of the Franco-Prussian War.

    Edouard Detaille (1848-1912)
    La Reve
    1888
    Oil on canvas
    Paris, Musée d’Orsay
    © RMN (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

     ~*~*~

    “As to the Germans, they will reap what they have sown. Now they are at the pinnacle of power; they made all of Europe tremble, and they are foolish enought to rejoice at it. It is very dangerous to frighten everyone; we learned it at our own expense; they will learn it in their turn. Because Bismarck has succeeded in his enterprises, they look upon him as a kind of a god; they will not see that this man employed only dishonest means; stragedy, lies, espionage, corruption and violence. Nothing is ever firm that is erected on such a foundation.

        ”But to tell all this or nothing to the Germans would come to the same thing; they are intoxicated by their victories, and will only awake when Europe, wearied by their ambition and by their insolence, will rise to bring them to reason; then they will be forced to acknowledge as we have acknoweldged ourselves, that, if strengh sometimes overwhelms right, Justice is eternal.”

    — The final lines of Brigadier Frederick, a french novel by Erckmann-Chatrian, 1874