Caelica 4: You little stars that live in skies

You little stars that live in skies
And glory in Apollo’s glory,
In whose aspècts conjoinèd lies
The heaven’s will and nature’s story,
Joy to be likened to those eyes,
Which eyes make all eyes glad or sorry;
     For when you force thoughts from above,
     These overrule your force by love.

And thou, O Love, which in these eyes
Hast married Reason with Affection,
And made them saints of Beauty’s skies,
Where joys are shadows of perfection,
Lend me thy wings that I may rise
Up, not by worth, but thy election;
     For I have vowed in strangest fashion
     To love and never seek compassion.

Text –From Caelica by Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, 1633

Image –Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

Caelica 29: The nurse-life wheat within his green husk growing

The nurse-life wheat within his green husk growing,
Flatters our hope, and tickles our desire,
Nature’s true riches in sweet beauties showing,
Which sets all hearts, with labor’s love, on fire.

No less fair is the wheat when golden ear
Shows unto hope the joys of near enjoying;
Fair and sweet is the bud, more sweet and fair
the rose, which proves that time is not destroying.

Caelica, your youth, the morning of delight,
Enamel’d o’er with beauties white and red,
All sense and thoughts did to belief invite,
That love and glory there are brought to bed;
     And your ripe year’s love-noon; he goes no higher,
     Turns all the spirits of man into desire.

Text –From Caelica by Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, 1633

Image –Wheat Stacks in Provence by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

Day in Autumn

After the summer’s yield, Lord, it is time
to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials
and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.
Direct on them two days of warmer light
to hale them golden toward their term, and harry
the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.

Whoever’s homeless now, will build no shelter;
who lives alone will live indefinitely so,
waking up to read a little, draft long letters,
and, along the city’s avenues,
fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

Text –Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Maria Kinzie

Image –Vincent Van Gogh, Le Moulin de la Galette, Autumn 1886

Autumn Landscape, 1885

Shades of Montmartre #3

“To my friend Vincent this stupid sketch”
Émile Bernard, 1888

Van Gogh’s Montmartre