Poetry Spotlight – Sonnet XCIV – A Poem by Lorenzo de’ Medici

(PAINTING) (WATER COLOUR) (TITLE) (COMMON VIOLET) (ARTIST) (A. B. FOLEY) (POEM) (TITLE (SONNET XCIV)) (POET) (LORENZO DE' MEDICI)

Sonnet XCIV by Lorenzo de’ Medici

Translated by Guido A. Guarino

O lovely violet, you were born there
Where my desire of love came to life.

Beautiful, sad tears were your only waters
That nourished you and often did you bathe.

My lady’s love did mercy nourish there
Where the plant lay in that most sacred earth.

Her lovely hand plucked you and then was pleased
To make mine happy with so dear a gift.

That you to flee want it seemed to me
To that most lovely hand, so I hold you
Against my bare breast tenderly and tight.

Grief and desire my poor bare breast does hold
In my heart’s stead, for my poor heart scorns me
And there remains whence you just came, O violet.

Poem Attribution © Lorenzo de’ Medici, Sonnet XCIV

Source Attribution The Language of Flowers, Ed. Jane Holloway, Pub. Alfred A. Knopf

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Painting Attribution © A. B. Foley, Common Violet, (Date Unstated)

Source Attribution https://www.abfoleyart.com/product/common-violet/

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Spotlight Poetry – By the Sea – A Poem by Christina Rossetti

(PAINTING) (TITLE) (ROCKY BEACH) (ARTIST) (SVETLANA ZIUZINA) (POEM) (TITLE) (BY THE SHORE) (POET) (CHRISTINA ROSSETTI)

© Svetlana Ziuzina, Rocky Beach, 2009

By the Sea by Christina Rossetti

Why does the sea moan evermore?
Shut out from heaven it makes its moan,

It frets against the boundary shore;
All earth’s full rivers cannot fill
The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.

Sheer miracles of loveliness
Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed:
Anemones, salt, passionless,
Blow flower-like; just enough alive
To blow and multiply and thrive.

Shells quaint with curve, or spot, or spike,
Encrusted live things argus-eyed,

All fair alike, yet all unlike,
Are born without a pang, and die
Without a pang, and so pass by.

Poem Attribution © Christina Rossetti, By the Sea

Source Attribution https://internetpoem.com/christina-rossetti/by-the-sea-poem/

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Painting Attribution © Svetlana Ziuzina, Rocky Beach, 2009

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Rocky-Beach/205088/2713894/view

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Spotlight Poetry – The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter – A Poem by Li Po

(PAINTING) (TITLE) (LANDSCAPE WITH PAVILION AND WILLOWS) (ARTIST) (SHEN ZHOU) (POEM) (TITLE) (THE RIVER MERCHANT'S WIFE: A LETTER) (POET) (LI PO)

© Shen Zhou, Landscape with a Pavilion and Willows

The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter by Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.

You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
For ever and for ever and for ever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,

Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

Poem Attribution © Li Po, The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter, (Translator Unstated)

Source Attribution Favourite Love Poems, Ed. Dannie Abse, Pub. Batsford

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Painting Attribution © Shen Zhou, Landscape with a Pavilion and Willows, Ming (1368–1644) or Qing (1644–1911) dynasty

Source Attribution https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/53601

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Spotlight Poetry – Juke Box Love Song – A Poem by Langston Hughes

(PAINTING) (TITLE) (TRADITIONAL JAZZ) (ARTIST) (LEON ZERNITSKY) (POEM) (TITLE) (JUKEBOX LOVE SONG) (POET) (LANGSTON HUGHES)

Juke Box Love Song by Langston Hughes

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,

Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue buses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.

Take Harlem’s heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,

Dance with you till day—
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

Poem Attribution © Langston Hughes, Juke Box Love Song

Source Attribution https://allpoetry.com/Juke-Box-Love-Song

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Painting Attribution © Leon Zernitsky, Traditional Jazz, 2021

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Traditional-Jazz/694924/8186311/view

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Spotlight Poetry – The Violet – A Poem by Henry Hawkins

(PAINTING) (TITLE) (VIOLET BUNNY) (ARTIST) WENDY EDELSON) (POEM) (TITLE) (THE VIOLET) (THE VIRGIN) (POET) (HENRY HAWKINS)

© Wendy Edelson, Violets Bunny, 2020

The Violet by Henry Hawkins

In Heaven the humble Angels God Beheld;
And on the earth, with Angels paralel’d,

The lowlie Virgin view’d. Her modest eye,
Submissive count’nance, thought did relye
On him that would exalt an humble wight
And make his Mother Alma, ne’re in sight,

With vertues, fragrant colours, round beset,
Close to the earth lay like a Violet;
Which, shrowded with it’s leaves, in covert lyes,
Found sooner by the sent then by eyes.

Such was the Virgin rays’d to be Heaven’s Queene,
Who on the earth, neglected, was not seene.

Poem Attribution © Henry Hawkins, The Violet, (From The Virgin)

Source Attribution The Language of Flowers, Ed. Jane Holloway, Pub. Alfred A. Knopf

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Painting Attribution © Wendy Edelson, Violets Bunny, 2020

Source Attribution https://fineartamerica.com/featured/violets-bunny-wendy-edelson.html

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Spotlight Poetry – The Sea Limits – A Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

(PAINTING) (TITLE) (SOLITUDE) (ARTIST) (LIZA ILLICHMANN) (POEM)  (TITLE) (THE SEA LIMITS) (POET) (DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI)

© Liza Illichmann, Solitude, 2022

The Sea Limits by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Consider the sea’s listless chime:
Time’s self it is, made audible,—

The murmur of the earth’s own shell.
Secret continuance sublime
Is the sea’s end: our sight may pass
No furlong further. 
 Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No quiet, which is death’s,—it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,

Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world’s heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,

Grey and not known, along its path.

Listen alone beside the sea,
Listen alone among the woods;

Those voices of twin solitudes
Shall have one sound alike to thee:
Hark where the murmurs of thronged men
Surge and sink back and surge again,—

Still the one voice of wave and tree.

Gather a shell from the strewn beach
And listen at its lips: they sigh

The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea’s speech.
And all mankind is thus at heart
Not anything but what thou art:

And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.

Poem Attribution © Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Sea Limits

Source Attribution https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4837/the-sea-limits/

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Painting Attribution © Liza Illichmann, Solitude, 2022

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Solitude/1882986/9660335/view

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Spotlight Poetry – Tartary – A Poem by Walter de la Mare

(PAINTING) (TITLE) (PAISLEY PEACOCK) (ARTIST) (DAVID GALCHUTT) (POEM) (TITLE) (TARTARY) (POET) (WALTER DE LA MARE)

© David Galchutt, Paisley Peacock, 2020

Tartary by Walter de la Mare

If I were Lord of Tartary,
Myself, and me alone,
My bed should be of ivory,
Of beaten gold my throne;

And in my court should peacocks flaunt,
And in my forests tigers haunt,
And in my pools great fishes slant
Their fins athwart the sun.


If I were Lord of Tartary,
Trumpeters every day
To all my meals should summon me,
And in my courtyards bray;

And in the evening lamps should shine,
Yellow as honey, red as wine,
While harp, and flute, and mandoline
Made music sweet and gay.


If I were Lord of Tartary,
I’d wear a robe of beads,
White, and gold, and green they’d be —
And small and thick as seeds;

And ere should wane the morning star,
I’d don my robe and scimitar.
And zebras seven should draw my car
Through Tartary’s dark glades.


Lord of the fruits of Tartary.
Her rivers silver-pale!
Lord of the hills of Tartary.
Glen, thicket, wood, and dale!

Her flashing stars, her scented breeze,
Her trembling lakes, like foamless seas,
Her bird-delighting citron-trees,
In every purple vale!

Poem Attribution © Walter de la Mare, Tartary

Source Attribution https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/tartary

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Painting Attribution © David Galchutt, Paisley Peacock, 2020

Source Attribution https://fineartamerica.com/featured/paisley-peacock-david-galchutt.html

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Spotlight Poetry – The Jumblies – A Poem by Edward Lear

(PAINTING) (LITHO PRINT) (TITLE)  (THE JUMBLIES) (ARTIST) (LEONARD LESLIE BROOKE) (POEM) (THE JUMBLIES) (POET) (EDWARD LEAR)

© Leonard Leslie Brooke, The Jumblies (Colour Litho), Date Unstated

The Jumblies by Edward Lear

I
 
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
   In a Sieve they went to sea:

In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,
   In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,

And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’
They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big,
But we don’t care a button! we don’t care a fig!
   In a Sieve we’ll go to sea!’

      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

 
 II
 
They sailed away in a Sieve, they did,
   In a Sieve they sailed so fast,
With only a beautiful pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,

   To a small tobacco-pipe mast;
And every one said, who saw them go,
‘O won’t they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,

And happen what may, it’s extremely wrong
   In a Sieve to sail so fast!’
      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

 
 III
 
The water it soon came in, it did,
   The water it soon came in;

So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat,
   And they fastened it down with a pin.
And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,

And each of them said, ‘How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
   While round in our Sieve we spin!’

      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

 
 IV
 
And all night long they sailed away;
   And when the sun went down,
They whistled and warbled a moony song
To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,

   In the shade of the mountains brown.
‘O Timballo! How happy we are,
When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar,
And all night long in the moonlight pale,

We sail away with a pea-green sail,
   In the shade of the mountains brown!’
      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

     Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

 

V
 
They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,
   To a land all covered with trees,

And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
   And a hive of silvery Bees.
And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,

And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
   And no end of Stilton Cheese.
      Far and few, far and few,

         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Poem Attribution © Edward Lear, The Jumblies,

Source Attribution https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54364/the-jumblies

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Painting / Print Attribution © Leonard Leslie Brooke, The Jumblies (Colour Litho), Date Unstated

Source Attribution https://www.meisterdrucke.uk/fine-art-prints/Leonard-Leslie-Brooke/1067056/The-Jumblies-(colour-litho).html

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Spotlight Poetry – Where Everything is Music – A Poem by Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

(PAINTING) (TITLE) (MUSIC AT SEA) (ARTIST) (SHEILA POSNER) (POEM) (WHERE EVERYTHING IS MUSIC) (POET) (JALĀL AL-DĪN MUHAMMAD RŪMĪ)

© Sheila Posner, Music at Sea, 2018

Where Everything is Music by Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī 

Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the centre of your chest,
and let the spirit fly in and out.

Poem Attribution © Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī,Where Everything is Music, Translated by Coleman Barks and John Moyne

Source Attribution https://www.mindfulnessassociation.net/words-of-wonder/where-everything-is-music-rumi-2/

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Painting Attribution © Sheila Posner, Music at Sea, 2018

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/print/Painting-Music-at-Sea/735324/7766209/view

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Spotlight Poetry – Those trackless depths, where many a weary sail – A Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

(PAINTING) (TITLE) (OCEAN STORM) (ARTIST) (GEORGE HUNTER) (POEM) THOSE TRACKLESS DEPTHS) (QUEEN MAB 8) (POET) (PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY)

Those trackless depths, where many a weary sail

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

From Queen Mab (VIII – The Fairy)

Those trackless depths, where many a weary sail
Has seen, above the illimitable plain,

Morning on night, and night on morning rise;
Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread
Its shadowy mountains on the sun-bright sea,
Where the loud roarings of the tempest-waves

So long have mingled with the gusty wind
In melancholy loneliness, and swept
The desert of those ocean solitudes;
But, vocal to the sea-bird’s harrowing shriek,

The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm,
Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds
Of kindliest human impulses respond.

Poem Attribution © Percy Bysshe Shelley, Those trackless depths, where many a weary sail, From Queen Mab (VIII – The Fairy)

Source Attribution https://www.marxists.org/archive/shelley/1813/queen-mab.htm

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Painting Attribution © George Hunter, Ocean Storm, 2014

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Ocean-Storm/49320/2010823/view

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