Love's Philosophy and Boucher

Shepherd and Shepherdess Reposing, 1761, Francois Boucher

The fountains mingle with the river

   And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

   With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

   All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle.

   Why not I with thine?—

Charms of Life Champetre, Boucher

See the mountains kiss high heaven

   And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

   If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth

   And the moonbeams kiss the sea:

What is all this sweet work worth

   If thou kiss not me?

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Meeting at Night

The grey sea and the long black land; 
And the yellow half-moon large and low; 
And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, 
As I gain the cove with pushing prow, 
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. 

Nightingale, Christy Lee Rogers

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; 
Three fields to cross till a farm appears; 
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, 
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, 
Than the two hearts beating each to each.

~ Robert Browning

Summer Days

  In summer, when the days were long,

We walked together in the wood:

  Our heart was light, our step was strong;

Sweet flutterings were there in our blood,

  In summer, when the days were long.

Poppies, The Walk; Claude Monet, 1873, Oil on Canvas, Musee d'Orsay, Paris France

  We strayed from morn till evening came;

We gathered flowers, and wove us crowns;

We walked mid poppies red as flame,

Or sat upon the yellow downs;

And always wished our life the same.

  In summer, when the days were long,

We leaped the hedgerow, crossed the brook;

And still her voice flowed forth in song,

Or else she read some graceful book,

In summer, when the days were long.

Light Rays, The Sea Ranch, Paul Kozal

  And then we sat beneath the trees,

With shadows lessening in the noon;

And in the sunlight and the breeze,

We feasted many a gorgeous June,

While larks were singing o'er the leas.

  In summer, when the days were long,

On dainty chicken, snow-white bread.

We feasted, with no grace but song;

We plucked wild strawb'rries, ripe and red,

In summer, when the days were long.

The PLC (Peas Love Carrots) Response to Renoir's 1905 Strawberries Painting

  We loved, and yet we knew it not,

For loving seemed like breathing then;

We found a heaven in every spot;

Saw angels, too, in all good men;

And dreamed of God in grove and grot.

Redwood Grotto, Sea Ranch, Paul Kozal

  In summer, when the days are long,

Alone I wander, muse alone.

I see her not; but that old song

Under the fragrant wind is blown,

In summer when the days are long.

  Alone I wander in the wood:

But one fair spirit hears my sighs;

And half I see, so glad and good,

The honest daylight of her eyes,

That charmed me under earlier skies.

Ophelia (Sitting/Resting), John William Waterhouse

  In summer, when the days are long,

I loved her as we loved of old.

My heart is light, my step is strong;

For love brings back those hours of gold,

In summer, when the days are long.

~Anonymous 

(Poem from A Treasury of Poems: A Collection of the World's Most Famous and Familiar Verse. Compiled by Sarah Anne Stuart, 1996, BBS Publishing Company, pgs. 344-45.)

BEDOUIN SONG

In The Fire, 2012, Oil on Canvas, Jennifer Morrison Godshalk

FROM the Desert I come to thee
  On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
  In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
  And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
  With a love that shall not die
     Till the sun grows cold,
     And the stars are old,
     And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!

Allure of Worlds, 2011, Photography, Goldpaint Photography

Look from thy window and see
  My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
  And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
  With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
  Of a love that shall not die

     Till the sun grows cold,
     And the stars are old,
     And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!

My steps are nightly driven,
  By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
  The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
  And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
  The love that shall fade no more

     Till the sun grows cold,
     And the stars are old,
     And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!

The Kiss, c. 1882, Marble, Auguste Rodin, Musee Rodin, Paris, France

by: Bayard Taylor (1825-1878)

Love's Philosophy

Fountain in Atlanta, 2013, Jeniffer Sams

The fountains mingle with the river   

And the rivers with the ocean,   

The winds of heaven mix for ever   

With a sweet emotion;   

Nothing in the world is single, 

All things by a law divine   

In one another's being mingle—   

Why not I with thine?   

 

Psyche ranimee par le baiser de l'Amour, Antonio Canova, Musee du Louvre, Paris

See the mountains kiss high heaven,   

And the waves clasp one another; 

No sister-flower would be forgiven   

If it disdain'd its brother;   

And the sunlight clasps the earth,   

And the moonbeams kiss the sea—   

What is all this sweet work worth 

If thou kiss not me? 

Cupid and Psyche, 1891, Annie Louisa Robinson Swynnerton

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Whoever You Are, Holding Me Now In Hand

Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,   

Without one thing, all will be useless,   

I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,   

I am not what you supposed, but far different.   

 

Пелагея Клубникина

Who is he that would become my follower? 

Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?   

   

The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps

     destructive;   

You would have to give up all else—I alone would expect

     to be your God, sole and exclusive,   

Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,   

The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the

     lives around you, would have to be abandon'd;

Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—

     Let go your hand from my shoulders,   

Put me down, and depart on your way.   

   

Пелагея Клубникина

Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial,   

Or back of a rock, in the open air,   

(For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not—nor

     in company, 

And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or

     dead,)   

But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching

     lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares,   

Пелагея Клубникина

Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea,

     or some quiet island,   

Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,   

With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss, 

For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.   

   

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,   

Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,   

Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;   

For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best,

And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried

     eternally.   

   

But these leaves conning, you con at peril,   

For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,   

They will elude you at first, and still more afterward—I will

     certainly elude you,   

Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!

Already you see I have escaped from you.   

 

Пелагея Клубникина

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written

     this book,   

Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,   

Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,   

Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,)

     prove victorious,

Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just as much evil,

     perhaps more;   

For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times

     and not hit—that which I hinted at;   

Therefore release me, and depart on your way.

~ Walt Whitman

The poet warns that what is thought of him is but a facade and not reality - "I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,   / I am not what you supposed, but far different".    Pretense and notions about who the writer is must be abandoned and trust in what the author is righting is a must - "The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the /  lives around you, would have to be abandon'd".  The author is conveying the complexity of his thoughts about life and love in a contrived manner and stating that it is difficult to 'know' him, to truly 'know him'. His description of love and relationships is both about physical and spiritual and that is keeping with his usual views on love. 

Whitman is probably also talking about his poetry and his writing as much as he is talking of love. His analogies and almost riddle like lines could easily be about his work, especially given his lines "Nor will my poems do good only--they will do just as much evil, / perhaps more".

I decided to use surreal artist, Пелагея Клубникина, as the artist for this poem. I used this art because I feel that the message Whitman is conveying about love and poetry is timeless and these pieces of art convey in a more contemporary way the same messages.... I hope you enjoy.

Air and Angels

Psyche et L'Amour (Psyche and Cupid), 1889, William Bouguereau

Twice or thrice had I loved thee,

Before I knew thy face or name;

So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,

Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be;

   Still when, to where thou wert, I came,

Some lovely glorious nothing I did see,

   But since my soul, whose child love is,

Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,

   More subtle than the parent is

Love must not be, but take a body too,

   And therefore what thou wert, and who

     I bid love ask, and now

That it assume thy body, I allow,

And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow. 

Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought, 

And so more steadily to have gone,

With wares which would sink admiration,

I saw, I had love's pinnace overfraught,

   Every thy hair for love to work upon

Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;

   For, nor in nothing, nor in things

Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;

   Then as an angel, face and wings

Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,

   So thy love may be my love's sphere;

     Just such disparity

As is 'twixt air and angels' purity, 

'Twixt women's love, and men's will ever be.

~ by John Donne

Le Ravissement de Psyche (The Rapture of Psyche), 1895, William Bouguereau

Donne is again writing about love, not just any love but pure, immortal love. He talks about love in the abstract and unseen in the first stanza as he writes, "Twice or thrice had I loved thee,/ Before I knew thy face or name" and then begins to talk about love in a more tangible form at the end of the first stanza. As Donne continues to the second stanza he writes of the ethereal nature of love that exists in a free an pure state like that of angels and air. In two stanzas Donne moves from discussing love in a tangible, earthly form to an elevated and heavenly love.

Fate

Michal Karcz

Two shall be born the whole world wide apart,

And speak in different tongues, and pay their debts

In different kinds of coin; and give no heed

Each to the other’s being. And know not

That each might suit the other to a T,

If they were but correctly introduced.

And these, unconsciously, shall bend their steps,

Escaping Spaniards and defying war,

Unerringly toward the same trysting-place,

Albeit they know it not. Until at last

They enter the same door, and suddenly

They meet. And ere they’ve seen each other’s face

They fall into each other’s arms, upon

The Broadway cable car – and this is Fate!

Last Kiss, Adam Martinakis

~Carolyn Wells 1862–1942

Song To Celia and The Odyssey - Celia and Calypso

Song to Celia

Drinke to me, onely, with thine eyes,

    And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kisse but in the cup,

    And Ile not looke for wine.

The thirst, that from the soule doth rise,

    Doth aske a drinke divine:

But might I of Jove's Nectar sup,

   I would not change for thine.

  I sent thee, late, a rosie wreath,

    Not so much honoring thee,

As giving it a hope, that there

    It could not withered bee.

But thou thereon did'st onely breath,

    And sent'st it back to mee:

Since when it growes, and smells, I sweare,

    Not of it selfe, but thee.

   I would not change for thine.

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

   Not of itself, but thee.

~ Ben Jonson (1619)

Song to Celia from Poets.org


Jonson uses immortality and eternity symbols such as Jove’s Nectar and a (rosie) wreath i.e. a circle or eternal symbol when he speaks of his love. Much like Donne, Jonson uses the eyes, our “windows to the soul” to flesh out the true nature of Celia’s feelings.

To change the spelling to ‘new English’ would be a mistake, in my opinion as Jonson has already invoked the imagery of Jove (Zeus), nectar - considered by the Greeks to be the ‘Nectar of the Gods’ and hold immortality which is collected by bees from blossoming flowers so the use of bee in line 12 could be said to be a reference to nectar.  Both Jove and nectar are used quite extensively in Homer’s Odyssey. 

Calypso and Odysseus, Oil on canvas, Gerard de Lairesse, Rijks Museum, Amsterdam 

In book V, Homer talks of Calypso who longs for the love of Odysseus who, 'In the nights, true / he'd sleep with her in the arching cave-he had no choice- / unwilling lover alongside lover all too willing... / But all his days he'd sit on the rocks and beaches, / wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish, / gazing over the barren sea through blinding tears. (Homer, The Odyssey, Book V, Lines 170-175)'.  Odysseus loved his wife like Jonson loves Celia and Calypso loves Odysseus. Like Jonson, Calypso will not receive the same eternal and unending love from Odysseus and realizes she must let him go both physically and emotionally. Calypso says to Odysseus, "No need, my unlucky one, to grieve here any longer, / no, don't waste your life away. Now I am willing, / heart and soul, to send you off at last (Homer, The Odyssey, Book V, Lines 177-179)."  Jonson realizes Celia will not return his love the same as he feels when he wrote in lines 13-14, "But thou thereon did'st onely breath, / And sent'st it back to mee".


Both Calypso and Jonson may love deeper and more completely than ever before and want an eternal and immortal love, but when the person they love does not return these feelings they have to let them go.

Calypso's Isle, Oil On Canvas, 1897, Herbert James Draper (1862-1920), Source for Image

And that art and poetry fans is my spin on the poem and not an official analysis... 

Give Back, O Silver Stream and Fountain Bright.... Michelangelo

    Give back, O silver stream and fountains bright,
the constant spring you borrowed from my eyes,
the power not yours that makes you swell and rise,
the flow that nature never made so great.
     And you, dense air, that shade the heavenly light
from these sad orbs and thicken with my sighs,
restore them to the heart that weary lies,
clear your dark faces to my new sharpened sight.
     Now let the earth give back my foot's hard print
that grass may grow on what was trodden bare,
echo, long deaf, send back my loud lament; 
     and may your holy lights at last set free
my longing looks to sometime love another
beauty, since you have no delight in me.

Michelangelo
Probably to T. C.

Buonarroti, Michelangelo. "Poems". Michelangelo; Poems and Letters. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by    Anthony Mortimer. London, England: Penguin Classics, 2007.

No matter who Michelangelo's heart belonged to his works were rarely rivaled.  His sketches are quite telling of the amount of time and attention given to his art, which I suspect was is true love before all else.....

Ideal Head, Michelangelo. Print available by appointment at the Ashmolean Museum  print room by appointment http://www.ashmolean.org/departments/westernart/printroom/collections/?s=Michelangelo

Ideal Head of a Woman, Michelangelo, Drawing, British Museum

Study of A Head, Michelangelo

A Youth Beckoning, Pen and brown ink on paper. c. 1504-05. The British Museum, London 

One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand

From an AMAZING Blog - http://wanderlustscarlett.blogspot.com/

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Love in the Sand

“Vain man”, said she, “that dost in vain assay

A mortal thing so to immortalize,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eek my name be wiped out likewise.”

Jeniffer Sams, 2007

“Not so” quod I, “let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew.”

1595, Edmund Spenser

(Pickering et al. 1994)

I happened upon a blog titled 'From the Shores of Introspection and Retrospect' and I just love the blog, the poetry, the art, and and and so please check it out.... An AMAZING Blog - http://wanderlustscarlett.blogspot.com/

Poem from: Pickering, J.H., and J. D. Hoeper. Questions To Ask About Poetry. Literature. Edited by D. Anthony English. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1994.

The Nymph's Reply To the Shepherd

By: ~ Florian Imgrund http://www.inthoughts.de/portfolio.html

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
To wayward winter reckoning yields,
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.


Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
The Coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

~ SIR WALTER RALEIGH, 1600

Raleigh was responding to another poem, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe, 1599.  When Raleigh wrote his poem, nymph was essentially the same as saying girl/woman but with a mythical context.  In my opinion, the nymph or female is in essence replying to the 'Passionate Shepherd' from Marlowe's poem by being a bit cynical in the first 4 stanzas particularly setting the mood in the first stanza by utilizing the word "if".... Raleigh is setting up the "IF"/"THEN" argument (whether implied or stated.  IF this is true, THEN that must be true. If all things were perfect, if no man (Shepherd) betrayed his love, if flowers never died, if clothing and shoes did not fade or wear, ect. THEN love would be possible... Happiness, joy, delight would be possible.....

In the last stanza the nymph, girl, upon pronouncing all these things she likely finds joy, happiness, and even love in softens her blows and perhaps she realizes that these things are superficial - flowers, spring, fruit, silk for clothing, and leather for shoes but they all have their time.... and IF "...joys no date, nor age no need, THEN these delights my mind might move / To live with thee, and be they love."  

Time After Time, by, Roland Guballa aka ROLOFOTO who wrote on this photograph, "Love is truly an amazing thing to have; especially if it can withstand the test of time.  I saw this old couple on Younge street and couldn’t help but take a photograph of them. Not only are they adorable, but their genuine love is something truly to be admired! I can already hear Adam Sandler’s “I want to grow old with you” song playing on top of my head as I write this." Please see more of this artist's work at http://rolofoto.tumblr.com/ and at www.rolofoto.net/apps/blog

The Broken Heart

El Abrazo, Oil on Canvas, 2006, Santiago Carbonell

He is stark mad, whoever says,
    That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
    But that it can ten in less space devour ;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
    Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
    I saw a flash of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
    If once into love's hands it come !
All other griefs allow a part
    To other griefs, and ask themselves but some ;
They come to us, but us love draws ;
He swallows us and never chaws ;
    By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die ;
    He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

Don't You Remember, Ryan DeLaurentis His Weblink

If 'twere not so, what did become
    Of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
    But from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
    More pity unto me ; but Love, alas !
    At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
    Nor any place be empty quite ;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
    Those pieces still, though they be not unite ;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
    My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
    But after one such love, can love no more.

~ John Donne

Love at first sight, in an instant can affect us and make our world feel whole and complete.... make a flash ('a flash of powder burn a day) feel like eternity until love destroys the heart that feels love, but like a mirror shattered on the floor a broken heart ('Those pieces still, though they be not unite; And now, as broken glasses show - A hundred lesser faces....') shattered shows love even in the shattered heart.... It is part of the broken hearted only amplified and reflected hundreds of times over.  The heart of the love lost remains, but in painful shards. After such a strong, passionate, love at first sight and whole love described Donne writes 'But after one such love, can love no more.' - perhaps it is not that love is not possible, but this kind of love is a once in a lifetime love, not shattered and painfully gone.