It was kismet, it is now hiraeth, a homesickness for a place to which we cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places in our past.
I think someone, somewhere on these boards has already pointed out that Tolkien's writing seems to evoke this sensation. Inspired by him, we have recreated that same sense here in the virtual Middle Earth of TORC. We may not be able to repeat the feats of the past, for like the peoples of the Third Age, we have dwindled. Still, we may do much...
...There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls’ that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and oppos’d
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Mov’d earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
[from Ulysses by A. Tennyson]
Too much?
Well then, what shall it be? Tea and crumpets in the drawing room? Or margaritas by the pool?