The Lovers’ Chronicle 5 December – lucidity – verse by Christina Rossetti – art by Konstantin Korovin

05 December 2023 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s edition of The Lovers’ Chronicle; Pale Lover, Pale Rider from Mac Tag. Do you trust in eternal lucidity? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

for Anna

now with you

certainty
in focus
findin’ myself
in my place

so on this waxin’
crescent night
i dwell not so much
on the found and lost
but on purpose
and meant to be

right time, right place
has ridden into
this solitude

then, i think of you

certainty

comin’ in focus

findin’ myself

in a different place

so on this chilly night

i dwell not so much

on the found and lost

but on purpose

and meant to be

all that remains to see

has right time, right place

ridden into this lucid solitude

is it up-hill all the damn way

“Yes, to the very end.”

will it take long

“From beauty

to sorrow,

my friend.”

remember

gone far away

into solitude

better by far you should

remember and be sad

than forget and smile

on this waxin’ moon night

the sad songs have come,

have come to us

where instinct and bein’
form into whatever will be
call out, around, everywhere
feelin’s no longer obscured
entangled in overdue choice

lucidity comes
crossin’ time
and distance

a voice heard, a whisper,
evermore, somewhere
in this awakenin’ desire

Pale Love, Pale Rider

Dear Dark Muse,

he said that to you
and you said that to him
well, hell if i know
there is no figurin’
what is inside
some people’s hearts
not even sure
what is inside my own

there were times
when i was certain
i had found lucidity
only to find myself
in the same damn place
pickin’ up what was left
of another sundered heart
and wonderin’ what went wrong

no doubt
failure was destined
tryin’ to love ’em all
without knowin’ how
to love myself

so on this windy,
cold, full moon night
i dwell not so much
on the found and lost
for i have lucidity
of a certain sort
my raison d’etre
is bein’ fulfilled
all that remains
to be seen
is whether or not
right time and right place
rides into this lucid solitude

The Song of the Day is one of my favorite songs and it played a part in the Poem of the Day. Since I became fascinated with the movie Inception I have been intrigued by the idea of lucid dreams. You did the rest, Dark Muse, and I thank you. Give yourself to the……

Eternal Lucidity

From everlastin’ silence,
Unconscious, ocean of night
Where instinct and bein’ soar,
Into whatever may be

Call out, nothin’, where is this
Around, everywhere, darkness
Everywhere a solemn vertigo
Entangled, obscured feelin’s

This featureless aurora
Float swirls of those in between
Oasis or misery, a choice
Crossin’ this unknown desert

Chosen for this mysterious trip
Remain here, stark, quiescent,
While around crowd the others
Cry, hope, death; astonishment

A voice heard, a whisper, who
The witness of evermore
Somewhere in this metamorphoses
Fear morphs into uncontrolled desire

Could this be, a conduit of space
To infinity, populated
By the unfortunate who find not
Themselves when they travel in this place

Ask again, anxiety and doubt
Or an enigma at least
Listen to the hours driftin’, dyin’
Dyin’, dyin’, time untouched

Die, be more nothin’
Enter the silence
Feel the disquiet desire
Then see the universe of the night

Nothin’, nothin’, rage assures
Tomorrow extinguished, not promised
Sewn in a cloth, prey to Nevermore
That is the trouble with never

Never said and done cannot be undone
What was let go cannot be held again
To be without, realizin’ now
There is just not another way to be

Then, surrender to the One
The one born of shadows
Trust in a different kind of truth
A degree of acceptance, as is

So, have not only this life
Go, alone, seek that certain future
Forget what the centuries have done
Trust the eternal lucidity

Christina Rossetti

Today is the birthday of Christina Georgina Rossetti (London 5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894 London); poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children’s poems. She is famous for writing Goblin Market and Remember, and the words of the Christmas carol In the Bleak Midwinter. She was the sister of artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Portrait of Rossetti, by her brother Dante

In her late teens, Rossetti became engaged to the painter James Collinson, the first of three suitors. He was, like her brothers Dante and William, one of the founding members of the avant-garde artistic group, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (founded 1848). The engagement was broken in 1850 when he reverted to Catholicism. Later she became involved with the linguist Charles Cayley, but declined to marry him, also for religious reasons. The third offer came from the painter John Brett, whom she also refused.

Rossetti sat for several of Dante’s most famous paintings. In 1848, she was the model for the Virgin Mary in his first completed oil painting, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, which was the first work to be inscribed with the initials ‘PRB’, later revealed to signify the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The following year she modelled again for his depiction of the Annunciation, Ecce Ancilla Domini. A line from her poem “Who shall deliver me?” inspired the famous painting by Fernand Khnopff called “I lock my door upon myself“.

Illustration for the cover of Rossetti’s Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), by her brother Dante

Quotes

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
- Up-Hill, st. 1 (1861).

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit.
- A Birthday, st. 1 (1861).

The birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
- A Birthday, st. 2.

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
- Song, st. 1 (1862).

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land.
- Remember, l. 1-2 (1862).

Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
- Remember, l. 13-14.

For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.
- Goblin Market, st. 28 (1862).

Oh roses for the flush of youth,
And laurel for the perfect prime;
But pluck an ivy branch for me
Grown old before my time.
- Song, st. 1 (1862).

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
- Mid-Winter, st. 1 (1872).

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.
- Who Has Seen the Wind?, st. 2 (1872).

Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,
Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,
Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover,
Sleeping at last.
- Sleeping at Last, st. 1 (1893) .

Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth,
Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth,
Faith is like a lily, lifted high and white,
Love is like a lovely rose, the world’s delight.
Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,
But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.
- Hope is like a Harebell; reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

All earth’s full rivers can not fill
The sea that drinking thirsteth still.
- By the Sea; reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919); Old and New, Volume 5 (1872), p. 169.

One day in the country
Is worth a month in town.
- Summer; reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Silence more musical than any song.
- Sonnet. Rest; reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet:
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

1862

Konstantin Korovin
Valentin Serov, Portrait of Konstantin Korovin, 1891

Today is the birthday of Konstantin Alekseyevich Korovin (Moscow; 5 December [O.S. 23 November] 1861 – 11 September 1939 Paris); Impressionist painter.

One of the artist’s favourite themes was Paris. He painted A Paris Cafe (1890s), Cafe de la Paix (1905), La Place de la Bastille (1906), Paris at Night, Le Boulevard Italien (1908), Night Carnival (1901), Paris in the Evening (1907), and others.

During World War I Korovin worked as a camouflage consultant at the headquarters of one of the Russian armies and was often seen on the front lines. After the October Revolution Korovin continued to work in the theater, designing stages for Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre and Siegfried, as well as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (1918–1920).

In 1923 Korovin moved to Paris on the advice of Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky to cure his heart condition and help his handicapped son. There was supposed to be a large exhibition of Korovin’s works, but the works were stolen and Korovin was left penniless. For years, he produced the numerous Russian Winters and Paris Boulevards just to make ends meet.

In the last years of his life he produced stage designs for many of the major theatres of Europe, America, Asia and Australia, the most famous of which is his scenery for the Turin Opera House’s production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel.

Korovin died in Paris on 11 September 1939. He was buried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery, in the southern suburbs of Paris.