The Stuff of Legends

Sir Galahad  Herbert Gustave Schmalz

Sir Galahad

by Lord Alfred Tennyson

My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel:
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the tide of combat stands,
Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
That lightly rain from ladies' hands.

How sweet are looks that ladies bend
On whom their favours fall!
From them I battle till the end,
To save from shame and thrall:
But all my heart is drawn above,
My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine:
I never felt the kiss of love,
Nor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,
Me mightier transports move and thrill;
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.

When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims,
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride;
I hear a voice but none are there;
The stalls are void, the doors are wide,
The tapers burning fair.
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,
The silver vessels sparkle clean,
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,
And solemn chaunts resound between.

Sometime on lonely mountain-meres
I find a magic bark;
I leap on board: no helmsman steers:
I float till all is dark.
A gentle sound, an awful light!
Three angels bear the holy Grail:
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
And star-like mingles with the stars.

When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,
And, ringing, springs from brand and mail;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.

A maiden knight--to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.
I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,
Whose odours haunt my dreams;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armour that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.

The clouds are broken in the sky,
And thro' the mountain-walls
A rolling organ-harmony
Swells up, and shakes and falls.
Then move the trees, the copses nod,
Wings flutter, voices hover clear:
"O just and faithful knight of God!
Ride on! the prize is near."
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide,
Until I find the holy Grail.

Snapshot of Holland

The Avenue at Middelharnis  Meindert Hobbema

Memory of Holland
by Hendrik Marsman

Thinking of Holland
I see wide rivers slowly
flowing through endless
low-lying land,
inconceivably
gossamer poplars
on the horizon
in wispish ranks;
and in the expanses of
space, sunken farmsteads
randomly strewn over
flat countryside,
tree-clusters, hamlets,
truncated steeples,
churches and elm trees
in a net flung wide.
The sky there hangs low
and the sun slowly stifles
in vapours where multiple
greys become blurred,
and in every far corner
the voice of the water
with its countless disasters
is feared and is heard.

Shadowy Thoughts

Snow Shadows  Tom Thompson

 

 

 

Tree Shadows

Japanese poem

All hushed the trees are waiting

On tiptoe for the sight

Of moonrise shedding splendor

Across the dusk of night.

Ah, now the moon is risen

And lo, without a sound

The trees all write their welcome

Far along the ground!

Skating Lessons

Learning to Skate

by Emilie Blackmore Stapp

When brother teaches her to skate,

They never stay out very late,

But, oh, it is such fun!

With sister holding fast one hand, 

She feels grown-up and much too grand,

To want to skip or run.

She tells them both that she thinks they

Should hurry home from school each day,--

For it gets dark so soon--

And take her to the meadow pond,

Or to the river just beyond,

To skate each afternoon.

Her skating lessons are a game,

That you might call by any name--

In frostly winter air,

The wind gives her a little ride

With brother laughing at her side,

The Ice King everywhere!

Jack Frost

Frosted Windows  Charles Buchfield

Jack Frost

by Gabriel Setoun

The door was shut, as doors should be, 

Before you went to bed last night; 

Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see, 

And left your window silver white. 

He must have waited till you slept; 

And not a single word he spoke, 

But pencilled o’er the panes and crept 

Away again before you woke.

And now you cannot see the hills 

Nor fields that stretch beyond the lane; 

But there are fairer things than these 

His fingers traced on every pane. 

Rocks and castles towering high; 

Hills and dales, and streams and fields; 

And knights in armor riding by, 

With nodding plumes and shining shields. 

And here are little boats, and there 

Big ships with sails spread to the breeze; 

And yonder, palm trees waving fair 

On islands set in silver seas, 

And butterflies with gauzy wings; 

And herds of cows and flocks of sheep; 

And fruit and flowers and all the things 

You see when you are sound asleep. 

For, creeping softly underneath 

The door when all the lights are out, 

Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe, 

And knows the things you think about. 

He paints them on the window-pane 

In fairy lines with frozen steam; 

And when you wake you see again 

The lovely things you saw in dream.

Stargazing

The Starry Night  Vincent VanGogh

Stars

by an Unknown Poet

I'm glad the stars are over me

and not beneath my feet,

Where I should not trample on them

like cobbles on the street.

I think it is a happy thing

that they are set so far;

It's best to have to look up high

when you would see a star.

Winter Birches, Summer Birches

Birch Forest  Gustav Klimt

Birches

By Robert Frost
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.