Evening Star

Edward Burne Jones

Evening Star

Evening Star

'Twas noontide of summer,

And mid-time of night

And stars, in their orbits,

Shone pale, thro' the light

Of the brighter, cold moon,

'Mid planets her slaves,

Herself in the Heavens,

Her beam on the waves.

I gazed awhile

On her cold smile;

Too cold- too cold for me-

There pass'd, as a shroud,

A fleecy cloud,

And I turned away to thee,

Proud Evening Star,

In thy glory afar,

And dearer thy beam shall be;

For joy to my heart

Is the proud part

Thou bearest in Heaven at night,

And more I admire

Thy distant fire,

Than that colder, lowly light.

~ Edgar Allen Poe ~

Worth Dying For

Leonardo Alenza

The Suicide

Worth Dying For

If we shall live, we live:

If we shall die; we die:

If we live we shall meet again:

But to-night, good-bye.

One word, let but one be heard-

What, not one word?

If we sleep we shall wake again

And see to-morrow's light:

If we wake, we shall meet again:

But to-night,good-night.

Good-night, my lost and found-

Still not a sound?

If we live, we must part;

If we die, we part in pain:

If we die, we shall part

Only to meet again.

By those tears on either cheek,

To-morrow you will speak.

To meet, worth living for:

Worth dying for, to meet,

To meet, worth parting for:

Bitter forgot in sweet.

To meet, worth parting before,

Never to part more.

~ Christina Rossetti ~

Spring in War Time

Hugo Simberg

The Garden of Death

Spring in War Time

I feel the Spring far off, far off,

The faint far scent of bud and leaf--

Oh how can Spring take heart to come

To a world in grief,

Deep grief?

The sun turns north, the days grow long,

Later the evening star grows bright--

How can the daylight linger on

For men to fight,

Still fight?

The grass is waking in the ground,

Soon it will rise and blow in waves--

How can it have the heart to sway

Over the graves,

New graves?

Under the boughs where lovers walked

The apple-blooms will shed their breath--

But what of all the lovers now

Parted by death,

Gray Death?

~ Sara Teasdale ~

I Went to the City

Edward Hopper

Approaching a City

I Went to the City

I went to the city

And there I did weep

Men a-crowin’ like asses,

And livin’ like sheep.

Oh, can’t hold the han’ of my love!

Can’t hold her little white han’!

Yes, I went to the city,

And there I did bitterly cry,

Men out of touch with the earth,

And with never a glance at the sky.

Oh, can’t hold the han’of my love!

Can’t hold her pure little han’!

~ Kenneth Patchen ~

The Author to Her Book

Gerrit Dou

Old Woman Reading

The Author to Her Book

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,

Who after birth didst by my side remain,

Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,

Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,

Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,

Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).

At thy return my blushing was not small,

My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,

I cast thee by as one unfit for light,

The visage was so irksome in my sight;

Yet being mine own, at length affection would

Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.

I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,

And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.

I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,

Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet;

In better dress to trim thee was my mind,

But nought save homespun cloth i' th' house I find.

In this array 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam.

In critic's hands beware thou dost not come,

And take thy way where yet thou art not known;

If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;

And for thy mother, she alas is poor,

Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

~ Anne Bradstreet ~

Felix Vallotton

Nude

Antoine Wiertz

The Reader of Novels

Aftermath

Lovis Corinth

Autumn Flowers

Aftermath

When the summer fields are mown,

When the birds are fledged and flown,

And the dry leaves strew the path;

With the falling of the snow,

With the cawing of the crow,

Once again the fields we mow

And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers

Is this harvesting of ours;

Not the upland clover bloom;

But the rowen mixed with weeds,

Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,

Where the poppy drops its seeds

In the silence and the gloom.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ~

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

René Magritte

The Emperor of Light

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,

The muscular one, and bid him whip

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.

Let be be finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,

Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet

On which she embroidered fantails once

And spread it so as to cover her face.

If her horny feet protrude, they come

To show how cold she is, and dumb.

Let the lamp affix its beam.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream

~ Wallace Stevens ~

Dance Russe

Giorgio de Chirico

Self Portrait

Dance Russe

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

~ William Carlos Williams ~

A Screamer Discusses Methods of Screaming

David Alfaro Siqueiros

Echo of a Scream

A Screamer Discusses Methods of Screaming

We all scream, most of us inside.
Outside is another world.
A neighbor fills her television dinner
With too much pepper and screams.
One woman stabs her door with a sword.
Another, overweight, steps in the shower
And screams, “Fat! Fat! Fat!”
A man who takes flying lessons
Soars high in the clouds to scream.
Another dives to the bottom of his pool
Where he screams underwater.
A friend cleans his gun, screaming “Assassin!”
I like an interior, smiling scream.
When you walk past me on the street
I nod my head to you and, smiling, scream.
You never hear me through the smile.
The inside scream has no echo.

~ James Schevill ~

Putting in the Seed

Leon Kroll

Spring Romance

Putting in the Seed

You come to fetch me from my work to-night

When supper's on the table, and we'll see

If I can leave off burying the white

Soft petals fallen from the apple tree

(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,

Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)

And go along with you ere you lose sight

Of what you came for and become like me,

Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.

How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed

On through the watching for that early birth

When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes

Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

~ Robert Frost ~

Perfidy

Leon Spilliaert

Moonlight and Light

Perfidy

Hollow rang the house when I knocked on the door,
And I lingered on the threshold with my hand
Upraised to knock and knock once more:
Listening for the sound of her feet across the floor,
Hollow re-echoed my heart.

The low-hung lamps stretched down the road
With shadows drifting underneath,
With a music of soft, melodious feet
Quickening my hope as I hastened to meet
The low-hung light of her eyes.

The golden lamps down the street went out,
The last car trailed the night behind;
And I in the darkness wandered about
With a flutter of hope and of dark-shut doubt
In the dying lamp of my love.

Two brown ponies trotting slowly
Stopped at a dim-lit trough to drink:
The dark van drummed down the distance slowly;
While the city stars so dim and holy
Drew nearer to search through the streets.

A hastening car swept shameful past,
I saw her hid in the shadow,
I saw her step to the curb, and fast
Run to the silent door, where last
I had stood with my hand uplifted.
She clung to the door in her haste to enter,
Entered, and quickly cast
It shut behind her, leaving the street aghast.

~ D. H. Lawrence ~

To a Young Child

Joshua Reynolds

The Age of Innocence

Spring and Fall, To a Young Child

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leaves, like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! as the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you will weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sorrow's springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It is the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

~ Gerald Manley Hopkins ~

Of Pearls and Stars

Paul Baudry

The Wave and the Pearl

Of Pearls and Stars

The pearly treasures of the sea,

The lights that spatter heaven above,

More precious than these wonders are

My heart-of-hearts filled with your love.

The ocean's power, the heavenly sights

Cannot outweigh a love filled heart.

And sparkling stars or glowing pearls

Pale as love flashes, beams and darts.

So, little, youthful maiden come

Into my ample, feverish heart

For heaven and earth and sea and sky

Do melt as love has melt my heart.

~ Heinrich Heine ~

Reluctance

John Singer Sargent

Man Wearing Laurels

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;

The last long aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

~ Robert Frost ~

I Would Live in Your Love

Paul Delvaux

Nude on the Beach

I Would Live in Your Love

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,

Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;
I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,

I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it leads.

~ Sara Teasdale ~

Longing

Paul Delvaux

Los Mujeres Tumultuosas

Longing

I am not sorry for my soul

That it must go unsatisfied,

For it can live a thousand times,

Eternity is deep and wide.

I am not sorry for my soul,

But oh, my body that must go

Back to a little drift of dust

Without the joy it longed to know.

~ Sara Teasdale ~