19th Century Post

Evening: Landscape with an Aquaduct - 1818

by Théodore Géricault

(Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Now let no charitable hope 

Now let no charitable hope

Confuse my mind with images

Of eagle and of antelope:

I am by nature none of these.

I was, being human, born alone;

I am, being woman, hard beset;

I live by squeezing from a stone

What little nourishment I get.

In masks outrageous and austere

The years go by in single file;

But none has merited my fear,

And none has quite escaped my smile.  

                                                                        ~by Elinor Wylie

Chalk Cliffs on Rügen - ca 1818

by Caspar David Friedrich

(Museum Oskar Reinhart am Stadtgarten)

The Soul has Bandaged moments

The Soul has Bandaged moments --

When too appalled to stir --

She feels some ghastly Fright come up

And stop to look at her --

Salute her -- with long fingers --

Caress her freezing hair --

Sip, Goblin, from the very lips

The Lover -- hovered -- o'er --

Unworthy, that a thought so mean

Accost a Theme -- so -- fair --

The soul has moments of Escape --

When bursting all the doors --

She dances like a Bomb, abroad,

And swings upon the Hours,

As do the Bee -- delirious borne --

Long Dungeoned from his Rose --

Touch Liberty -- then know no more,

But Noon, and Paradise --

The Soul's retaken moments --

When, Felon led along,

With shackles on the plumed feet,

And staples, in the Song,

The Horror welcomes her, again,

These, are not brayed of Tongue --

                                                               ~Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The Eve of Saint Agnes (Madeleine undressing) - 1863

by John Everett Millais

Pandora - 1896

by John William Waterhouse

(private collection)

Storm in the Rocky Mountains (Mount Rosa) - 1886

(Brooklyn Museum, New York)

Sierra Nevada - ca 1873

(Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC)

Looking Down Yosemite Valley - 1865

(Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama)

Aurora Borealis - 1865

by Frederic Edwin Church

(Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.)

The Paradox

I AM the mother of sorrows,

          I am the ender of grief;

I am the bud and the blossom,

          I am the late-falling leaf.

I am thy priest and thy poet,

          I am thy serf and thy king;

I cure the tears of the heartsick,

          When I come near they shall sing.

White are my hands as the snowdrop;

          Swart are my fingers as clay;

Dark is my frown as the midnight,

          Fair is my brow as the day.

Battle and war are my minions,

          Doing my will as divine;

I am the calmer of passions,

          Peace is a nursling of mine.

Speak to me gently or curse me,

          Seek me or fly from my sight;

I am thy fool in the morning,

          Thou art my slave in the night.

Down to the grave will I take thee,

          Out from the noise of the strife;

Then shalt thou see me and know me--

          Death, then, no longer, but life.

Then shalt thou sing at my coming,

          Kiss me with passionate breath,

Clasp me and smile to have thought me

          Aught save the foeman of Death.

Come to me, brother, when weary,

          Come when thy lonely heart swells;

I'll guide thy footsteps and lead thee

          Down where the Dream Woman dwells.