Painting, Poetry

The Mystery

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Homage to Asher B. Durand. Thomas Locker.

 

The Mystery

G.K. Chesterton

 

If sunset clouds could grow on trees

It would but match the may in flower;

And skies be underneath the seas

No topsyturvier than a shower.

 

If mountains rose on wings to wander

They were no wilder than a cloud;

Yet all my praise is mean as slander,

Mean as these mean words spoken aloud.

 

And never more than now I know

That man’s first heaven is far behind;

Unless the blazing seraph’s bloq

Has left him in the garden blind.

 

Witness, O Sun that blinds our eyes,

Unthinkable and unthankable King,

That though all other wonder dies

I wonder not at wondering.

Painting, Poetry

To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train

The Train in the Country. Claude Monet. 1871.

 

To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train

Frances Cornwell

 

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

O fat white woman whom nobody loves,

Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

When the grass is soft as the breast of doves

And hsivering sweet to the touch?

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

 

Frances Cornwell was the daughter of Charles Darwin. I am posting her heavy-handed poem only for the fun of sharing G. K. Chesterton’s devastating rejoinder.

 

The Fat White Woman Speaks

G. K. Chesterton

 

Why do you rush through the field in trains,

Guessing so much and so much?

Why do you flash through the flowery meads,

Fat-headed poet that nobody reads;

And why do you know such a frightful lot

About people in gloves as such?

And how the devil can you be sure,

Guessing so much and so much,

How do you know but what someone who loves

Always to see me in nice white gloves

At the end of the field you are rushing by,

Is waiting for his Old Dutch?

 

Had you noticed Cornwell’s snobbish hypocrisy?

Painting, Traditional Song

The Loveable Child

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The Turtle Dove. Sophie Gengembre Anderson.

 

The Loveable Child

Emile Poulsson

 

Frisky as a lambkin,

Busy as a bee—

That’s the kind of little girl

People like to see.

 

Modest as a violet,

As a rosebud sweet—

That’s the kind of little girl

People like to meet.

 

Bright as a diamond,

Pure as any pearl—

Everyone rejoices in

Such a little girl.

 

Happy as a robin,

Gentle as a dove—

That’s the kind of little girl

Everyone will love.

 

Fly away and seek her,

Little song of mine,

For I choose that very girl

As my Valentine.

Illustration, Poetry

The Fairies Have Never a Penny to Spend

'Bear the Changeling Child to my Bower.' (A Midsummer Night's Dream.) Arthur Rackham.

 

The Fairies Have Never a Penny to Spend

Rose Fyleman

 

The fairies have never a penny to spend,

They haven’t a thing put by,

But theirs is the dower of bird and of flower

And theirs are the earth and sky.

And though you should live in a palace of gold

Or sleep in a dried-up ditch,

You could never be poor as the fairies are,

And never as rich.

 

Since ever and ever the world began

They have danced like a ribbon of flame,

They have sung their song through the centuries long

And yet it is never the same.

And though you be foolish and though you be wise,

With hair of silver or gold,

You could never be young as the fairies are,

And never as old.

Painting, Poetry

Why?

Pan Among the Reeds. Arnold Böcklin. 1858.

 

Why?

Walter de la Mare

 

Ever, ever

Stir and shiver

The reeds and rushes

By the river:

Ever, ever,

As if in dream,

The lone moon’s silver

Sleeks the stream.

What old sorrow,

What lost love,

Moon, reeds, rushes,

Dream you of?

 

‘Why?’ was published in Bells and Grass, a 1941 collection of Walter de la Mare’s poems for children.

Painting, Poetry

Magnifying Glass

Ninety-three Degrees in the Shade. William Adolphe Bouguereau.

 

Magnifying Glass

Walter de la Mare

 

With this round glass

I can make magic talk—

A myriad shell show

In a scrap of chalk;

 

Of but an inch of moss

A forest—flowers and trees;

A drop of water

Like a hive of bees.

 

I lie in wait and watch

How the deft spider jets

The woven web-silk

From his spinnerets;

 

What tigerish claws he has!

And oh, the silly flies

That stumble into his snare—

With all those eyes!

 

Not even the tiniest thing

By this my magic glass

Will make more marvelous

And itself surpass.

 

Yes, and with lenses like it,

Eyeing the moon,

‘Twoud seem you’d walk there

In an afternoon!

 

‘Magnifying Glass’ was published in Bells and Grass, a 1941 collection of Walter de la Mare’s poems for children.

Illustration, Poetry

The Starlight Night

"The stars that nature hung in Heav'n, and fill'd their lamps with everlasting oil, to give due light to the misled and lonely Traveller." (Comus) Arthur Rackham.

 

The Starlight Night

Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!

O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!

The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!

Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!

The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!

Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!

Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!

Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.

 

Buy then! bid then!—What?—Prayer, patience, alms, vows.

Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!

Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!

These are indeed the barn, withindoors house

The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse

Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

 

An abele is a white poplar.

Painting, Poetry

The Two Women

Woman with a Pearl. Camille Corot. 1870.

 

The Two Women

G.K. Chesterton

 

Lo! very fair is she who knows the ways

Of joy: in pleasure’s mocking wisdom old,

The eyes that might be cold to flattery, kind;

The hair that might be grey with knowledge, gold.

 

But thou art more than these things, O my queen,

For thou art clad in ancient wars and tears.

And looking forth, framed in the crown of thorns,

I saw the youngest face in all the spheres.

 

Women have a special beauty who experience joy throughout their lives, but more beautiful still is the woman who emerges serene from trial and tribulation.