Tag Archives: Unknown Artist

Illustration, Poetry

Variations on an Air

King Cole.

 

Variations on an Air

G.K. Chesterton

 

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,

And a merry old soul was he;

He called for his pipe,

and he called for his bowl,

and he called for his fiddlers three.

 

Ater Lord Tennyson.

Cole, that unwearied prince of Colchester,

Growing more gay with age and with long days

Deeper in laughter and desire of life

As that Virginian climber on our walls

Flames scarlet with the fading of the year;

Called for his wassail and that other weed

Virginian also, from the western woods

Where English Raleigh checked the boast of Spain,

And lighting joy with joy, and piling up

Pleasure as crown for pleasure, bade me bring

Those three, the minstrels whose emblazoned coats

Shone with the oyster-shells of Colchester;

And these three played, and playing grew more fain

Of mirth and music; till the heathen came

And the King slept beside the northern sea.

 

After W.B. Yeats.

Of an old King in a story

From the grey sea-folk I have heard

Whose heart was no more broken

Than the wings of a bird.

 

As soon as the moon was silver

And the thin stars began,

He took his pipe and his tankard,

Like an old peasant man.

 

And three tall shadows were with him

And came at his command;

And played before him for ever

The fiddles of fairyland.

 

And he died in the young summer

Of the world’s desire;

Before our hearts were broken

Like sticks in a fire.

 

After Robert Browning.

Who smoke-snorts toasts o’ My Lady Nicotine,

Kicks stuffing out of Pussyfoot, bids his trio

Stick up their Stradivarii (that’s the plural

Or near enough, my fatheads, nimium

Vicina Cremonæ; that’s a bit too near.)

Is there some stockfish fails to understand?

Catch hold o’ the notion, bellow and blurt back “Cole”?

Must I bawl lessons from a hornbook, howl,

Cat-call the cat-gut “fiddles”? Fiddlestick!

 

After Walt Whitman.

Me clairvoyant,

Me conscious of you, old camarado,

Needing no telescope, lorgnette, field-glass, opera-glass, myopic pince-nez,

Me piercing two thousand years with eye naked and not ashamed;

The crown cannot hide you from me,

Musty old feudal-heraldic trappings cannot hide you from me,

I perceive that you drink.

(I am drinking with you. I am as drunk as you are.)

I see you are inhaling tobacco, puffing, smoking, spitting

(I do not object to your spitting),

You prophetic of American largeness,

You anticipating the broad masculine manners of these States;

I see in you also there are movements, tremors, tears, desire for the melodious,

I salute your three violinists, endlessly making vibrations,

Rigid, relentless, capable of going on for ever;

They play my accompaniment; but I shall take no notice of any accompaniment;

I myself am a complete orchestra.

So long.

 

After Swinburne.

In the time of old sin without sadness

And golden with wastage of gold

Like the gods that grow old in their gladness

Was the king that was glad, growing old:

And with sound of loud lyres from his palace

The voice of his oracles spoke,

And the lips that were red from his chalice

Were splendid with smoke.

 

When the weed was as flame for a token

And the wine was as blood for a sign;

And upheld in his hands and unbroken

The fountains of fire and of wine.

And a song without speech, without singer,

Stung the soul of a thousand in three

As the flesh of the earth has to sting her,

The soul of the sea.

 

Chesterton notes this series was “Composed on Having to Appear in a Pageant as Old King Cole.” The familiar, solid simplicity of the original rhyme is reworked in the styles of five popular poets. Chesterton’s parodies are devastatingly humorous in their imitation of each poet’s style, perspective, and ego. This irreverent exercise reminds me of Chesterton’s remark about “higher culture”: “It means taking literature seriously, a very amateurish thing to do.”

Painting, Poetry

Mockingbird Morning

Patchwork. Unknown artist.

 

Mockingbird Morning

Samantha Little, 2010

 

The blue, sonorous summer night

Is thrilled by a sudden song that

Warms and grows like a golden light

Through my open bedroom window.

 

I lie still in limp cotton sheets,

Ignoring the stern insistence

Of clocks that unimpassioned beat

The passage of wee morning hours.

 

Why does he sing? Does he not know

That the pale queen still rules the sky?—

The golden king still far below

The dark horizon edged with stars?

 

His song yet unabated flows

And weaves itself among the trees,

And I with eyes that will not close,

Lie wakeful because of beauty.

 

 “My mockingbird has returned. Perhaps you remember him? Several weeks ago, he woke me up at three in the morning with his rhapsodies. I was not thrilled at the time, but I do enjoy listening to him in the daylight, once I am meant to be awake!”—from a letter dated April 21, 2009.

Birthday Posts, Photograph, Poetry

The Highwayman

Alfred Noyes.

 

The Highwayman

Alfred Noyes

 

PART I.

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

And the highwayman came riding—

Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

 

He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch or lace at his chin,

A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.

They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.

And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,

His pistol butts a-twinkle,

His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

 

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard.

He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.

He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there

But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

Plaiting a dark red lock-knot into her long black hair.

 

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked

Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked.

His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,

But he loved the landlord’s daughter,

The landlord’s red-lipped daughter.

Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

 

“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night,

But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;

Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,

Then look for me by moonlight,

Watch for me by moonlight,

I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”

 

He rose upright in the stirrups. He scarce could reach her hand,

But she loosened her hair in the casement. His face burned like a brand

As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;

And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,

(O, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)

Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

 

Part II.

He did not come in the dawning. He did not come at noon;

And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,

When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,

A red-coat troop came marching—

Marching—marching—

King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

 

They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead.

But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her narrow bed.

Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!

There was death at every window;

And hell at one dark window;

For Bess could see through the casement, the road that he would ride.

 

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest.

They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her breast!

“Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the doomed many say—

Look for me by the moonlight;

Watch for me by moonlight;

I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

 

She twisted her hand behind her; but all the knots held good!

She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!

They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years

Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,

Cold, on the stroke of midnight,

The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

 

The tip of one finger touched it. She strove no more for the rest.

Up, she stood to attention, with the muzzle beneath her breast.

She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;

For the road lay bare in the moonlight;

Blank and bare in the moonlight;

And the blood of her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love’s refrain.

 

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horsehoofs ringing clear;

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?

Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,

The highwayman came riding—

Riding—riding—

The red coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still.

 

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!

Nearer he came and nearer. Her face was like a light.

Here eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,

Then her finger moved in the moonlight,

Her musket shattered in the moonlight,

Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

 

He turned. He spurred to the west; he did not know who stood

Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood!

Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear

How Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

The landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

 

Back, he spurred like a madman, shouting a curse to the sky,

With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high.

Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;

When they shot him down on the highway,

Down like a dog on the highway,

And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

 

 .     .     .     .     .     .

 

And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,

When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas,

When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the pruple moor,

A highwayman comes riding—

Riding—riding—

A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

 

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard.

He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred.

He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there

But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

 

A Little Poetry—Today is the birthday of Alfred Noyes, who was born September 16, 1880. The poem “The Highwayman” is his most enduringly popular writing; It might be my favorite ballad! Especially effective is Noyes’ use of repetition to further the suspense and action of this tragic romance.

A Little Music—This poem has inspired several musical versions, but my favorite is that sung by Celtic singer Loreena McKennitt. You can listen to her sing a slightly revised version of “The Highwayman” at YouTube. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teq2m0BN-Wo>

Painting, Poetry

‘Women Know the Way to Rear Up Children’

1 Comment
Madonna and Child. Unknown artist.

 

from Aurora Leigh, Book One

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1856

 

…Women know

The way to rear up children, (to be just),

They know a simple, merry, tender knack

Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes,

And stringing pretty words that make no sense,

And kissing full sense into empty words;

Which things are corals to cut life upon,

Although such trifles: children learn by such,

Love’s holy earnest in pretty play.

And get not over-early solemnized,—

But seeing, as in a rose bush, Love’s Divine,

Which burns and hurts not, not a single bloom,—

Become aware and unafraid of Love.

Such good do mothers.     …

Mosaic, Poetry

Worlds

3 Comments
The Alexander Mosaic. House of the Faun, Pompei. 100 BC.

 

Worlds

Richard Wilbur

 

For Alexander there was no Far East,

Because he thought the Asian continent

India ended. Free Cathay at least

Did not contribute to his discontent.

 

But Newton, who had grasped all space, was more

Serene. To him it seemed that he’d but played

With several shells and pebbles on the shore

Of that profundity he had not made.

 

The Greek historian Plutarch, in his “Life of Alexander,” wrote: “When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.” Isaac Newton, who would conquer more than this in his scientific discoveries of laws of motion and gravity, wrote, “I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”