Lake Isle of Innisfree by Yeats and Arcadia

Pastorale ou Jeune berger dans un paysage, Francois Boucher

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.

The Setting of the Sun, 1752, Francois Boucher

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

Et in Arcadia ego, 1637-38, Nicolas Poussin, Oil on Canvas, Louvre Museum, Paris, France

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
                     
~ W.B. Yeats

Yeats, like most of us yearned for an Arcadia, a Innisfree of sorts.... Yet he knew, like the last part of his poem that we must stand on the roadway where the pavement is grey and dream in our heart of that Pastoral and Arcadia in our heart. Without dreamers like Poussin, Boucher, and Yeats all would be grey, but with them and with us we have rich colors, buttery brushstrokes, beautiful dreams, and art to lose ourselves in.... even if for a short time.

To all my dreamers, artists, poets, writers, and lovers of life - keep making life beautiful, A Girl Named Fred

Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 

The earth, and every common sight

                 To me did seem

            Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;--

             Turn wheresoe'er I may,

              By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

            The rainbow comes and goes, 

            And lovely is the rose; 

            The moon doth with delight

     Look round her when the heavens are bare;

            Waters on a starry night

            Are beautiful and fair;

     The sunshine is a glorious birth;

PLATE IV.—PASTORALE, Boucher, Louvre)

     But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

     And while the young lambs bound

            As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:

A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 

            And I again am strong.

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep,--

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong:

I hear the echoes through the mountains throng.

The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, 

            And all the earth is gay;

                Land and sea

     Give themselves up to jollity,

            And with the heart of May

     Doth every beast keep holiday;--

                Thou child of joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy 

        Shepherd-boy!

Ye blesséd Creatures, I have heard the call 

     Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; 

     My heart is at your festival,

       My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.

         O evil day! if I were sullen 

         While Earth herself is adorning

              This sweet May-morning;

         And the children are culling

              On every side

         In a thousand valleys far and wide

         Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, 

And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm:--

         I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

         --But there's a tree, of many, one, 

A single field which I have look'd upon, 

Both of them speak of something that is gone:

              The pansy at my feet

              Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam? 

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Le Repos, William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

          Hath had elsewhere its setting

               And cometh from afar;

          Not in entire forgetfulness,

          And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

               From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

               Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

               He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east 

     Must travel, still is Nature's priest,

          And by the vision splendid

          Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away, 

And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; 

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 

And, even with something of a mother's mind,

               And no unworthy aim,

          The homely nurse doth all she can 

To make her foster-child, her inmate, Man,

               Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came.

La Jeuness de Bacchus, William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,

A six years' darling of a pigmy size!

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,

With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,

Some fragment from his dream of human life,

Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;

          A wedding or a festival, 

          A mourning or a funeral;

               And this hath now his heart,

          And unto this he frames his song:

               Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife; 

          But it will not be long 

          Ere this be thrown aside, 

          And with new joy and pride

The little actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage'

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That life brings with her in her equipage; 

          As if his whole vocation

          Were endless imitation.

Primavera, Botticelli,  c. 1482 Tempra on Panel, Uffizi, Florence

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 

          Thy soul's immensity;

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep

Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,

Haunted for ever by the eternal Mind,--

          Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

          On whom those truths rest

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,

In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;

Thou, over whom thy Immortality

Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,

A Presence which is not to be put by; 

          To whom the grave

Is but a lonely bed, without the sense of sight

Of day or the warm light,

A place of thoughts where we in waiting lie;

Thou little child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,

And custom lie upon thee with a weight

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

          0 joy! that in our embers

          Is something that doth live,

          That Nature yet remembers

          What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest,

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--

          --Not for these I raise

          The song of thanks and praise;

     But for those obstinate questionings

     Of sense and outward things,

     Fallings from us, vanishings,

     Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized, 

High instincts, before which our mortal nature 

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:

     But for those first affections,

     Those shadowy recollections,

          Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

     Uphold us--cherish--and have power to make 

Our noisy years seem moments in the being 

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

               To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

               Nor man nor boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

   Hence, in a season of calm weather

          Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

               Which brought us hither;

          Can in a moment travel thither--

And see the children sport upon the shore, 

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Idylle, William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Then, sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

          And let the young lambs bound

          As to the tabor's sound!

     We, in thought, will join your throng, 

          Ye that pipe and ye that play, 

          Ye that through your hearts to-day 

          Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright 

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

     Though nothing can bring back the hour 

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

          We will grieve not, rather find

          Strength in what remains behind;

          In the primal sympathy

          Which having been must ever be;

          In the soothing thoughts that spring

          Out of human suffering;

          In the faith that looks through death, 

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

Vulcan Presenting Venus with Arms for Aeneas, 1757, Oil on Campus, Boucher, Louvre

And 0, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquish'd one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway;

I love the brooks which down their channels fret

Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born day

               Is lovely yet;

The clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; 

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

   Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

   Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

   To me the meanest flower that blows can give

   Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

~ William Wordsworth

Vulcan Presenting Venus with Arms for Aeneas by Francois Boucher

Vulcan Presenting Venus with Arms for Aeneas, Francois Boucher, 1757,
Oil on Canvas, 321 x 320 cm, Musee du Louvre

Venus' husband, Vulcan, the god of fire and the forge crafted arms for Aeneas at her pleading for his battle with Turnus.  Virgil writes of Aeneas in 'The Aeneid', the son of the Trojan mortal Anchises and Venus, the goddess of beauty and erotic love.  Aeneas is bestowed with divine protection because of Venus. He is chosen to survive the siege of Troy and to lay the foundations in Italy for the glory of the Roman Empire. In the Aeneid, Aeneas’s fate as Rome’s founder propels the story forward and the sequence of events frequently conveys that Aeneas’s heroism is to be indebted as much to his legacy as to his own choices and deeds. Aeneas provides the medium for the fates to carry out its design.  Boucher utilizes his creamy brush strokes and rich colorization to bring to life the mythological history of the exchange of the armor made for Venus' son who is half mortal and half god.  Although this is a Rococo period work, the elements of the Baroque style are still evident in the dramatic triangles, implied diagonal lines criss crossing the canvas, and the bottom of the canvas appearing as if the viewer could step into this dreamy world of gods, goddesses, putti, and myth.

Ophelia or La Jeune Martyre

La Jeune Martyre, Paul Delaroche, 1855, Louvre, Paris

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that’s for thoughts.
There’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue
for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o’ Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There’s a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end

[William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Atto IV, Scena V]

Many people mistake Delaroche's La Jeune Martyre for Ophelia; however Delaroche was a history painter and this is a depiction of the young female Christian Martyr in the 3rd CE.  Historical paintings of Delaroche's time include but are not limited to biblical histories.  The  most obvious give away this is not Ophelia is the bound hands as Ophelia took her life and La Jeune Martyre had her life taken.  As I stood in front of this awe inspiring painting in the Louvre I wanted to jump through the canvas and save her. She looked as if she had just succumb to the water and there was time to save her life.  Every aspect of the paint, light, coloration, reflections, and shadow captivates the viewer and draws them into the scene unfolding before them.  Although the martyrs eyes are closed I felt as if she was looking at the viewer still, but not in a desperate request for saving, rather in a resolve of peace with what has happened.  It is quite powerful.

Ode to Psyche ~ Keats

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung 
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
 And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conched ear: 


Surely I dreamt today, or did I see
 

The winged Psyche with awakened eyes? 
I wandered in a forest thoughtlessly,
 And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
 Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side 
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof
 

Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
 

A brooklet, scarce espied:



Psyché ranimée par le baiser de l'Amour, 1757,  Antonio CANOVA - Possagno, Venise, 1822

© Musée du Louvre/P. Philibert

A Closer Look, Louvre

'Mid hushed, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,


They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;


Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;
Their lips touched not, but had not bade adieu,


As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,


And ready still past kisses to outnumber


At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:


The winged boy I knew;


But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove? 


His Psyche true!



O latest born and loveliest vision far


Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!


Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-regioned star,


Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,


Nor altar heaped with flowers;


Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan


Upon the midnight hours;


No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet


From chain-swung censer teeming;


No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat


Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming.



Cupid and Psyche, 1808, oil on canvas, Benjamin West, On Auction at Christies at Present

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,


Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,


When holy were the haunted forest boughs,


Holy the air, the water, and the fire;


Yet even in these days so far retired


From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,


Fluttering among the faint Olympians,


I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.


So let me be thy choir, and make a moan


Upon the midnight hours;


Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet


From swinged censer teeming;


Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat


Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming.



Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane


In some untrodden region of my mind,


Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,


Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:


Far, far around shall those dark-clustered trees


Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;


And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,


The moss-lain dryads shall be lulled to sleep;


And in the midst of this wide quietness


A rosy sanctuary will I dress

The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche, 1744, Francois Boucher


With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,


With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,


With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,


Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:


And there shall be for thee all soft delight


That shadowy thought can win,


A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,


To let the warm Love in!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What interested Keats particularly in the myth was the fact that Psyche, a mortal, achieved immortality through love.

Sculpture - Antonio CANOVA - Possagno, 1757 - Venise, 1822

Psyché ranimée par le baiser de l'Amour

© Musée du Louvre/P. Philibert

Painting - Benjamin West, Cupid and Psyche, 1808

Painting - Francois Boucher, The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche, 1744