Category Archives: Memory Box

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry, Song, Traditional Song

Down by the Salley Gardens

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Water Willow. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 1871.

 

Down by the Salley Gardens

William Butler Yeats, 1889

 

Down by the salley gardens, my love and I did meet.

She passed the salley gardens with little, snow-white feet.

She bid me take life easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;

But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.

 

In a field by a river, my love and I did stand,

And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;

But I was young and foolish and now am full of tears.

 

A Little Poetry—Yeats presented “Down by the Salley Gardens” (originally titled “An Old Song Resung”) as “an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman.”

The word ‘salley’ suggests a garden of weeping willow trees. A ‘weir’ is a dam built across a river to control water levels.

A Little Music—In 1909, Hubert Hughs set Yeat’s poem to the wistful air “The Maids of the Mourne Shore.” You can listen to Roisin Reilly sing it on YouTube. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g5e8OJibhmI>

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry

‘I Praise the Frenchman’

The Solitude. Recollection of Vigen, Limousin. Camille Corot. 1866.

 

William Cowper

 

I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd—

How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude!

But grant me still a friend in my retreat,

Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.

 

A Little Poetry—The ‘Frenchman’ is the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire who famously wrote that “The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.”

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry

The Land of Story-books

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A Monster. Charles Burton Barber. 1866.

 

The Land of Story-books

Robert Lewis Stevenson, 1913

 

At evening when the lamp is lit,

Around the fire my parents sit;

They sit at home and talk and sing,

And do not play at anything.

 

Now, with my little gun I crawl

All in the dark along the wall,

And follow round the forest track

Away behind the sofa back.

 

There, in the night, where none can spy,

All in my hunter’s camp I lie,

And play at books that I have read

Till it is time to go to bed.

 

These are the hills, these are the woods,

These are my starry solitudes;

And there the river by whose brink

The roaring lions come to drink.

 

I see the others far away

As if in firelit camp they lay,

And I, like to an Indian scout,

Around their party prowled about.

 

So, when my nurse comes in for me,

Home I return across the sea,

And go to bed with backward looks

At my dear land of Story-books.

 

A Fine Picture—Barber’s playful painting illustrates Stevenson’s poem with a twist.—A little girl enacts the role of the “roaring lion” rather than that of the hunter.

A Little Poetry—Stevenson’s poems for children, published as A Child’s Garden of Verses, are remarkable for their sensitive understanding of a child’s imaginative play.

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry

The Elixer

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Peasant Woman Sweeping the Floor. Vincent van Gogh. 1885.

 

 

The Elixer

George Herbert (1593-1633)

 

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things thee to see,

And what I do in anything,

To do it as for thee:

 

Not rudely, as a beast,

To runne into an action;

But still to make thee prepossest,

And give it his perfection.

 

A man that looks on glasse,

On it may stay his eye;

Or, if he pleaseth, through it passe

And then the heav’n espie.

 

All may of thee partake:

Nothing can be so mean,

Which with his tincture (for thy sake)

Will not grow bright and clean.

 

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgerie divine:

Who sweeps a room as for thy laws,

Makes that and th’ action fine.

 

This is the famous stone

That turneth all to gold:

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for less be told.

 

A Little Poetry—Medieval apothecaries sought diligently after a mythical substance that would change base metals to precious gold. In George Herbert’s most famous poem, he employed this legendary elixer, or tincture, as a metaphysical conceit to describe the heavenly transformation of ‘drudgerie’ into divine service. It’s a poem I have dedicated to memory, a reminder to be deliberate in dedicating all my work to the Lord. “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23-24.

(In literature, a conceit is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem.)

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry

The Swing

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The Swing. Pierre Auguste Renoir. 1876.

 

The Swing

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885

 

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

 

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and

All over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown—

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry

A Comparison Addressed to a Young Lady

Princess out of School. Edward Robert Hughes.

 

A Comparison Addressed to a Young Lady

William Cowper, 1875

 

Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade,

Apt emblem of a virtuous maid—

Silent and chaste she steals along,

Far from the world’s gay, busy throng;

With gentle yet prevailing force

Intent upon her destined course;

Graceful and useful all she does,

Blessing and bless’d where’er she goes,

Pure-bosomed as that wat’ry glass,

And Heav’n reflected in her face.

 

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry

The Philosopher’s Garden

A Pensive Moment. Daniel Ridgeway Knight.

 

The Philosopher’s Garden

John Oxenham, 1913

 

‘See this is my garden,

Large and fair!’

—Thus, to the friend,

The Philosopher.

 

‘ ‘Tis not too long,’

His friend replied

With truth exact,—

‘Nor yet too wide.

But well compact,

If somewhat cramped

On every side.’

 

Quick the reply—

‘But see how high!—

It reaches up to God’s blue sky!’

 

Not by their size

Measure we men

Or things.

Wisdom, with eyes

Washed in the fire,

Seeketh the things

That are higher—

Things that have wings,

Thoughts that aspire.

 

A Little Poetry—William Arthur Dunkerley was a prolific writer who published poems, hymns, and novels under the name John Oxenham. “The Philosopher’s Garden” was a poem early placed in my memory box. I first encountered Oxenham’s poem in the garden anthology Up from the Earth. It was originally published in the volume Bees in Amber (1913), in which Oxenham poetically fossilized the proverbial bees in his bonnet.

This poem reminds me of my mother. As a homemaker and the teacher of our home-school, she has been wrongly contemned by others. Her sphere of influence, though powerful and beautiful, would seem a very small plot of earth—a Little garden. But the wise philosopher of the poem reminds his friend, and readers, to look vertically for the true magnitude of a work. Mark out Mama’s work in linear inches, if you like, but there aren’t enough of them in the world to tell how high her work reaches. “Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.”

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry

The Little Land

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The Titan's Goblet. Thomas Cole. 1833.

 

The Little Land

Robert Lewis Stevenson, 1913

 

When at home alone I sit

And am very tired of it,

I have just to shut my eyes

To go sailing through the skies—

To go sailing far away

To the Pleasant Land of Play;

To the fairy-land afar

Where the Little People are;

Where the clover tops are trees,

And the rain-pools are the seas,

And the leaves like little ships

Sail about on tiny trips;

And above the daisy tree

Through the grasses,

High o’erhead the Bumble Bee

Hums and passes.

 

In that forest to and fro

I can wander, I can go;

See the spider and the fly,

And the ants go marching by

Carrying parcels with their feet

Down the green and grassy street.

I can in the sorrel sit

Where the ladybird alit.

I can climb the jointed grass

And on high

See the greater swallows pass

In the sky,

And the round sun rolling by

Heeding no such things as I.

 

Through that forest I can pass

Till, as in a looking-glass,

Humming fly and daisy tree

And my tiny self I see,

Painted very clear and neat

On the rain-pool at my feet.

Should a leaflet come to land

Drifting near to where I stand,

Straight I’ll board that tiny boat

Round the rain-pool sea to float.

 

Little thoughtful creatures sit

On the grassy coasts of it;

Little things with lovely eyes

See me sailing with surprise.

Some are clad in armor green—

(These have sure to battle been!)—

Some are pied with ev’ry hue,

Black and crimson, gold and blue;

Some have wings and swift are gone;—

But they all look kindly on.

 

When my eyes I once again

Open, and see all things plain:

High bare walls, great bare floor;

Great big knobs on drawer and door;

Great big people perched on chairs,

Stitching tucks and mending tears,

Each a hill that I could climb,

And talking nonsense all the time—

O dear me,

That I could be

A sailor on the rain-pool sea,

A climber in the clover tree,

And just come back, a sleepy-head,

Late at night to go to bed.

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry

‘The Quality of Mercy’

Portia and Shylock. Thomas Sully. 1835.

 

from The Merchant of Venice

William Shakespeare, 1598

 

Portia:

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His scepter shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptered sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself,

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy. I have spoken thus much

To mitigate the justice of thy plea,

Which is thou follow, this strict court of Venice

Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.

 

A Fine Picture—An inscription written on the back of the canvas indicates the relevant lines from The Merchant of Venice: Portia intreats Shylock to “Be merciful./ Take thrice thy money; and bid me tear the bond.” But Shylock, holding the scale in which he intends to weigh a pound of flesh cut from Antonio, scowls at Portia and points at the bond that secures his claim. The dramatic scene is romantically painted; the focus is on the fair Portia, not effectively disguised here as a doctor of law.

A Little Poetry—The Merchant of Venice is Shakespeare’s great tragic-comedy, performed as early as 1596, and first published in 1660. The lovesick Bassanio borrows money from his friend Antonio (the eponymous merchant) in order to impress the lady he loves. Bassanio wins the fair Portia, but Antonio experiences a series of setbacks that leave him in debt to the Jewish moneylender Shylock. According to their contract, Shylock is entitled to a pound of Antonio’s flesh, which he plans to cut from Antonio’s heart. The case goes to the court of Venice. Portia, disguised as a young doctor of law, argues against Shylock’s vicious claim, appealing first to mercy (in this speech) and then to the exactest justice.

Memory Box, Painting, Poetry, Song, Traditional Song

Sweet and Low

Moonbeams. Jessie Willcox Smith.

 

Sweet and Low

Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1847

 

Sweet and low, sweet and low,

Wind of the western sea,

   Low, low, breathe and blow,

Wind of the western sea!

   Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow.

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

Father will come to thee soon;

   Rest, rest, on mother’s breast,

Father will come to thee soon;

   Father will come to his babe in the nest,

Silver sails all out of the west

Under the silver moon:

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.