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.”

Painting, Psalms, Scripture

Psalm 107:23-31

The Marco Polo. Montague Dawson.

 

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

They see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.

For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, are at their wits’ end.

Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

Then they are glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

 

When the word LORD appears in the biblical translation in all capital letters, it indicates that God’s Holy Name—YHVH—is used in the original text.

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.

Painting, Poetry

Art

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Jacob Wrestling with the Angel. Rembrandt van Rijn. 1658.

 

Art

Herman Melville (1819-1891)

 

In placid hours well-pleased we dream

Of many a brave unbodied scheme.

But form to lend, pulsed life create,

What unlike things must meet and mate:

A flame to melt—a wind to freeze;

Sad patience—joyous energies;

Humility—yet pride and scorn;

Instinct and study; love and hate;

Audacity—reverence. These must mate,

And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,

To wrestle with the angel—Art.

 

It is from this poem by the author of Moby Dick that this blog has its title.

Painting, Poetry

A Southern Garden

Royal Poinsiana. A. E. Backus.

 

A Southern Garden

Clifton Scollard (1860-1932)

 

Over the wall the bougainvillea vine

Droops in the languid breeze,

As purple as ethereal twilight wine

In crystal chalices.

 

Above, where palms and pointed cedars tower,

The cardinal wings along,

Like petals of the red hibiscus flower

Dowered with the gift of song.

 

After the chill of life, its moil, its stress,

How wrapt in rest it seems!—

Here is the Garden of forgetfulness,

Here is the Bourn of Dreams!

 

A Little Poetry—’Moil’ is drudgery. A ‘bourn’ is a boundary.

Painting, Poetry

On Having Misidentified a Wildflower

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Ruben Peale with a Geranium. Rembrandt Peale. 1801.

 

On Having Misidentified a Wildflower

Richard Wilbur

 

A thrush, because I’d been wrong,

Burst rightly into song

In a world not vague, not lonely,

Not governed by me only.

 

A Fine Picture—This is a portrait of Rembrandt’s youngest brother Rubens, who was a gardener, naturalist, and artist. This particular work may have been influenced by the 17th-century Dutch artist David Teniers the Younger. Artist names were popular in the Peale family, many of whose members were themselves artists. Besides a Rembrandt and a Rubens, there was a Raphael, Rosalba, and a Michael Angelo.

A Little Poetry—Richard Wilbur explained to an audience how this quatrain came about. “Shortly after he came to America, Joseph Brodsky came out to visit us in Cummington, Massachusetts. [W]e went for a walk in the woods, and I was amazed at a Russian exile’s ability to identify in English (or Latin, at need) just about everything that was growing in our woods. [A]s we approached a pond that was out there in the distance, I said, ‘Oh, there’s a blue flower in bloom by the pond. Perhaps it’s what we call Quaker Ladies.’ And he said, ‘No, I think it is what we call Do-not-forget-me.’ [laughter] And he was right, which I think was very offensive of him, you know, [laughter] to come from overseas and tell me what was blooming in my own wood. [laughter]” Listen to a recording at iBiblio of Wilbur introducing and reading his poem. <http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/audio/wilbur/on_having_misidentified_a_wild_flower.mp3>

Painting, Poetry

Table-Cloths

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One of the Family. Frederick Cotman. 1880.

 

Table-Cloths

Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)

 

Some people, when they sit to eat,

Prefer to see the table neat.

They want the linen spotless white,

The glasses dazzling in the light,

The silverware in trim array,

But, as for me, I often say,

Give me glad childhood’s table-cloth

Well-stained with jelly, milk and broth.

 

Not long in peace could I abide

In houses cold with pomp and pride,

Or dwell where dignity commands

Precision’s care from little hands.

I much prefer the happier place

Illumined by a smiling face,

The dining room where soon I know

A glass of milk will over go.

 

Be mine the room with laughter filled,

Where no one frets o’er what is spilled.

For what are table-cloths that they

Should drive all merriment away,

And why think accidents a crime,

Especially at dinner time?

They gather sorrows for their pains

Who make too much of jelly-stains.

 

I should not always like to dine

Where silverware and glasses shine

And linen white outlasts the meal;

Too sad and lonely I should feel.

In table-cloths I take no pride,

I want the children at my side.

My joy is in those splotches red

When jelly dances from the bread.

Painting, Poetry

The Letter

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. Johannes Vermeer. 1657.

 

The Letter

Amy Lowell

 

Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper

Like draggled fly’s legs,

What can you tell of the flaring moon

Through the oak leaves?

Or of my uncertain window and the bare floor

 

Spattered with moonlight?

Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them

Of blossoming hawthorns,

And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness

Beneath my hand.

 

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against

The want of you;

Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,

And posting it.

And I scald alone, here, under the fire

Of the great moon.

Painting, Poetry

The Pulley

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Life Line. Winslow Homer. 1884.

 

The Pulley

George Herbert (1593-1633)

 

When God at first made man,

Having a glass of blessings standing by,

“Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can.

Let the world’s riches, which disperséd lie,

Contract into a span.”

 

So strength first made a way;

Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure.

When almost all was out, God made a stay,

Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,

Rest in the bottom lay.

 

“For if I should,” said he,

“Bestow this jewel also on my creature,

He would adore my gifts instead of me,

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;

So both should losers be.

 

“Yet let him keep the rest,

But keep them with repining restlessness;

Let him be rich and weary, that at least,

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness

May toss him to my breast.”