Forbidden Fruit, by Roy Harper

Cover of Roy Harper's album Valentine
Cover of Roy Harper’s album Valentine (1974)

The English folk rock singer, songwriter and guitarist Roy Harper (born on June 12, 1941) has released 32 albums during a career that has lasted over 50 years. His 7th album Valentine, released in 1974 with Harvest Records, contains 10 tracks, starting with the song “Forbidden Fruit” that tells of a love affair with a 13 years old girl. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Sonnets of a Little Girl, IV, by Ernest Dowson

Léopold Morice - Fillette à la coquille
Léopold Morice – Fillette à la coquille, Pont Alexandre III, Paris, France – from Wikimedia Commons

Of the 8 Sonnets of a Little Girl, only two were published in Dowson’s lifetime: a modified version of the 8th, and this one, the 4th, in its original version. It appeared with the title “Sonnet to a little Girl” in London Society, volume 50, November 1886, over the initials E.C.D. Notice that while the title is dedicated to “a little girl,” in the first sentence of the poem he writes about the child “his” and “him.” CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

It was deep April and the morn, by Michael Field

William-Adolphe Bouguereau - La pêche aux grenouilles
William-Adolphe Bouguereau – La pêche aux grenouilles (1882) – from The Athenaeum

From “The Third Book of Songs” of Underneath the Bough, I present today what I consider one of the most important poems by Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper. In it, they defiantly proclaim in front of the world, “pressing sore,” their beautiful forbidden passion: “My Love and I took hands and swore, / Against the world, to be / Poets and lovers evermore,” laughing, dreaming and singing to the symbols of death, “Indifferent to heaven and hell.” They seek the “fast-locked souls” faithful to poetry, “Who never from Apollo fled.CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Cœur fidèle, par Émile Blémont

Jules-Cyrille Cavé - Mes marguerites
Jules-Cyrille Cavé – Mes marguerites (1901)

Dans Chansons des champs, la deuxième partie du recueil Les pommiers en fleur : idylles de France et de Normandie d’Émile Blémont, beaucoup de poèmes traitent de l’amour sur un ton léger, présageant des relations de courte durée et des sentiments papillonnant d’une fille à une autre. Par contre le poème qui suit exalte la beauté d’un amour unique, durable et fidèle, aspiration secrète qui s’est longtemps heurtée aux déconvenues de la vie. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Wordsworth’s Lucy Poems

Illustration for William Wordsworth's Lucy Poems
Illustration for William Wordsworth’s Lucy Poems

Between 1799 and 1801, William Wordsworth composed five poems about an unknown woman or girl called Lucy, telling his love for her and her unfortunate death. They have since been called the “Lucy poems,” although he did not use this designation. The order in which they are usually given follows that in later editions of his works, such as the 1815 edition of Poems by William Wordsworth, where the first three appear in the part “Poems founded on the affections,” pages 128 to 131, and the last two in the part “Poems of the imagination,” pages 313 to 315. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Dream-Tryst, by Francis Thompson

Léon Bazille Perrault - Out in the Cold
Léon Bazille Perrault – Out in the Cold (1890) – from Wikimedia Commons

This is one of the first two published poems of Thompson; it first appeared in 1888 in Merry England, the journal edited by Wilfrid Meynell. While he was a vagrant and beggar in London, Thompson had sent to Meynell a dirty envelope containing two poems, one of which was ‘Dream-Tryst,’ and a prose essay; Meynell put them aside for a few weeks, then published the three texts in the issues of April, May and June 1888. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…