I present today my last selection from the collection Rosa Mundi, and other love-songs, the ninth poem in it. The poet remembers courting a young peasant girl, “too happy to be loved,” who kissed him “frank and straight.”
Here ‘Rossett Ghyll’ designates a pass in Cumberland (according to the editor). CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
In 1796, Brooke Boothby published Sorrows. Sacred to the Memory of Penelope, a collection of poems in memory of his deceased daughter Penelope. The collection consists of 24 numbered sonnets, two longer poems both called Elegy, and a final 12-verse poem called Stanzas. In two previous posts I transcribed 7 of the 24 sonnets. Now I reproduce one of its two elegies. In this sad poem, Boothby longs to die and to have his body deposited by a friend into Penelope’s tomb, so that his ashes can mix with hers. Then, being rid of his body, he imagines his daughter greeting him in heaven, taking him by the hand and crowning him with a wreath of flowers. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Buvons l’amour, sans modération, dans une coupe en forme de fleur. Enivrons-nous à sa fontaine, douce offrande de la demoiselle. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
In a previous post, I copied 3 sonnets from Sorrows. Sacred to the Memory of Penelope, the collection of poems written by Brooke Boothby in memory of his daughter Penelope, who died one month before her sixth birthday. Here I transcribe three more sonnets (and correct another). CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
A beautiful love poem, the eleventh from the collection Rosa Mundi, and other love-songs. Here ‘darkmans’ means ‘night’ and is an old English canting word (according to the editor). CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Sir Brooke Boothby (1743–1824), seventh Baronet, and his wife Susanna (1755–1822) had a daughter, Penelope, born on April 11, 1785, their only child. The little girl is renowned for her portrait made by Sir Joshua Reynolds in July 1788. As writes Estelle Hurll in her booklet about Sir Joshua Reynolds: CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
My second choice from Myrtle, Rue and Cypress (1883), Stenbock’s second collection of verses, is a poem in the spirit of carpe diem, honouring love, youth and wine. Here he joins Baudelaire, who also extolled wine and drunkenness, and indeed both authors experienced the pleasures of alcohol and drugs. As in many of Stenbock’s poems, the gender of the beloved young person is left unknown, but it was most probably a boy. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Robert Herrick (1591–1674) was an English poet and cleric who lived through the Stuart dynasty, then the civil war and finally the Restoration. In 1648 he published Hesperides: Or, The Works Both Humane & Divine, a huge collection of poetry, to which he appended a shorter collection of religious poems, His Noble Numbers: Or, His Pious Pieces, apparently dated 1647; together, they make over 1400 poems. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Contrairement aux autres poèmes du deuxième recueil de Minou, Le Pêcheur de lune, celui-ci n’est pas dédié. On peut donc imaginer qu’il s’adresse à un amoureux secret. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
The eighth poem of Rosa Mundi, and other love-songs tells us that the beauty, the kisses and caresses of the loved Italian girl will not last, in the same way as night must soon end with sunrise. There is no salvation in an afterlife, so we must enjoy the pleasures of earthly life without delay, thus live the bliss of the short love night. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
