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…
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…
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…
Following Wordsworth’s “Lucy Poems,” I will now present another poem about someone called Lucy, from Boudoir Ballads by Joseph Ashby-Sterry. The style is light and softly erotic, quite different from Wordsworth’s romantic pathos. As several other poems by Ashby-Sterry, I illustrate it with a painting by Graham Ovenden, also of a girl called Lucy. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
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…
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…
In these verses, probably written around 1885, Dowson tells us that there is no sweeter music than a child’s name, it illuminates the poet’s life and relieves his heart of all sorrow. It is a sacred charm that guards him from harm. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
In 1893, Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper published, under their pen name Michael Field, a collection of poems titled Underneath the Bough. Their two previous volumes of poetry Long Ago (1889) and Sight and Song (1892) had as aim for the first “to express in English verse the passionate pleasure” of the works of the Greek poetess Sappho (edited and translated by by Henry Thornton Wharton), and for the second “to translate into verse what the lines and colours of certain chosen pictures sing in themselves;” on the other hand this third collection had no such scholarly purpose, its poems were like songs devoted to love and joy. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Poets and Lovers vit depuis deux ans, fleur fragile au futur incertain, soumise aux menaces d’un environnement hostile. Elle peut mourir, mais elle renaîtra alors certainement. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
“First of all, you must never speak of anything by its name—in that country. So, if you see a tree on a mountain, it will be better to say ‘Look at the green on the high’; for that’s how they talk—in that country. And whatever you do, you must find a false reason for doing it—in that country. If you rob a man, you must say it is to help and protect him: that’s the ethics—of that country. And everything of value has no value at all—in that country. You must be perfectly commonplace if you want to be a genius—in that country. And everything you like you must pretend not to like; and anything that is there you must pretend is not there—in that country. And you must always say that you are sacrificing yourself in the cause of religion, and morality, and humanity, and liberty, and progress, when you want to cheat your neighbour—in that country.”
“Good heavens!” cried Iliel, “are we going to England?”
— Aleister Crowley, Moonchild (1917), Chapter XX
Poets and Lovers has been living for two years, in an epoch where freedom of art is increasingly under attack. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
