Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge.  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

how we kissed the night we met and we thought yes this time and then we asked with our eyes the first time we made love yes and then we put our arms around each other yes and i drew you close so we could feel yes and our feelin’s comin’ alive and yes we said yes we will yes

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

once i started yes there was no turnin’ back and tellin’ you yes remains anyway whatever we do and then goin’ yes either it is what we want or need yes and what else were we given all those desires to know yes and we cannot help it if we still can yes it is a wonder after all we have endured yes

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge

at last
no matter the way the wind blows
ravin’ no more against time or fate
my own hath come

no haste, no delay
no eager pace
standin’ on my terms
what is mine shall know

what matters alone
waitin’ with somethin’
near joy,
the comin’ years

stars comin’ on
a tide unto the plains
nothin’ can keep
my own from me

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Today is Bloomsday and a quite memorable day in the annals of romance and love.  As a hopeless romantic, I cannot pass up the chance to tell this story.

On 16 June 1904, James Joyce and Nora Barnacle went on their first date.  Nora, who was from Galway, worked as a chambermaid at Finn’s Hotel in Dublin; she met Joyce on the 10th of June, but their first date did not happen until almost a week later.  They took a walk together in Ringsend, and may or may not have indulged in pleasures of the flesh, but either way it was the start of a romance that would last the rest of Joyce’s life.  Joyce’s father remarked when learning of Nora’s last name, “She’ll stick with him.”  Joyce commemorated the date in his novel Ulysses (1922), a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey set in contemporary Dublin.  Bloomsday is celebrated around the world.  In celebration of Bloomsday and you my muse, here is Molly Bloom’s soliloquy:

the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know

“…I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Mac Tag

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for. – Oscar Wilde

‘Tis a melancholy storm that crosses the dark reflections of your quiet soul. – Edgar Allan Poe

Poems are moment’s monuments. – Sylvia Plath

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Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

findin’
visions
dreams
come
moved by
the extraordinary

believin’
echoes of hope
once thought vain
but for you
this would not
be happenin’

so i vow
to continue
to strive
to bring you
nearer
to seek
beyond
the ordinary

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“Well hello there
My it’s been a long long time
How am I doin'”
well, i believe
i am beginnin’
to feel again

one year on from havin’
a cold, cold heart damn near stop
and one week in on a new beginnin’

cannot tell you how it feels
to find that hope did not
give up on me even though
i gave up on her, long ago

cannot say it any better than willie did…
“It’s been rough and rocky travelin’
But I’m finally standing upright on the ground”

“After takin’ several readings I’m surprised
To find my mind’s still fairly sound”
and i do believe i am beginnin’
to find myself

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Ridin’ up the canyon,
Twilight gathers under the walls
Gradually the objects low down
turned black, and this blackness
moved up the walls till night
enfolded the pass
The sky darkened; stars began
to show, first pale, then bright
Now unsaddled, camp made,
composed to await sleep
Night on the High Plains
most satisfyin’
The night’s wildness, loneliness;
When the full silence sets in,
and the deep darkness,
and trains of radiant stars
shine cold and calm, sleep
comes with the familiar ache

© copyright 2016 Mac tag all rights reserved

Detail of Mona Lisa (1503–06) by Leonardo da Vinci, Louvre

Today is the birthday of Lisa del Giocondo (née Gherardini; Via Maggio, Florence 15 June 1479 – 15 July 1542 or ca. 1551 Convent of Saint Orsola, Florence) also known as Lisa Gherardini, Lisa di Antonio Maria (or Antonmaria) Gherardini and Mona Lisa; a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany in Italy. Her name was given to Mona Lisa, her portrait commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance.

Married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local official, she was a mother to five children and led what is thought to have been a comfortable and ordinary middle-class life.

Centuries after Lisa’s death, Mona Lisa became one of the world’s most famous paintings and took on a life separate from Lisa, the woman.

 

Adah Isaacs Menken, age 19

Today is the birthday of Adah Isaacs Menken (June 15, 1835 – August 10, 1868 Paris); actress, painter and poet.  Perhaps best known for her performance in the melodrama Mazeppa, with a climax that featured her apparently nude and riding a horse on stage.  After success for a few years with the play in New York and San Francisco, she appeared in a production in London and Paris, from 1864 to 1866.  After a brief trip back to the United States, she returned to Europe.  However, she became ill within two years and died in Paris at the age of 33.

As Menken told so many versions of her origins, including her name, place of birth, ancestry, and religion, historians have differed in their accounts.  Most have said she was born a Louisiana Creole Catholic of mixed race, with European and African ancestry.  She married several times and was also known for her affairs.

Even though she was better known as an actress, Menken wanted to be known as a writer.  She published about 20 essays, 100 poems, and a book of her collected poems, from 1855 to 1868 (the book was published posthumously).  Her collection Infelicia, went through several editions and was in print until 1902.

“I am lost to art and life. Yet, when all is said and done, have I not at my age tasted more of life than most women who live to be a hundred? It is fair, then, that I should go where old people go.”

Dreams Of Beauty

Visions of Beauty, of Light, and of Love,
Born in the soul of a Dream,
Lost, like the phantom-bird under the dove,
When she flies over a stream-

Come ye through portals where angel wings droop,
Moved by the heaven of sleep?
Or, are ye mockeries, crazing a soul,
Doomed with its waking to weep?

I could believe ye were shadows of earth,
Echoes of hopes that are vain,
But for the music ye bring to my heart,
Waking its sunshine again.

And ye are fleeting. All vainly I strive
Beauties like thine to portray;
Forth from my pencil the bright picture starts,
And-ye have faded away.

Like to a bird that soars up from the spray,
When we would fetter its wing;
Like to the song that spurns Memory’s grasp
When the voice yearneth to sing;

Like the cloud-glory that sunset lights up,
When the storm bursts from its height;
Like the sheet-silver that rolls on the sea,
When it is touched by the night-

Bright, evanescent, ye come and are gone,
Visions of mystical birth;
Art that could paint you was never vouchsafed
Unto the children of earth.

Yet in my soul there’s a longing to tell
All you have seemed unto me,
That unto others a glimpse of the skies
You in their sorrow might be.

Vain is the wish. Better hope to describe
All that the spirit desires,
When through a cloud of vague fancies and schemes
Flash the Promethean fires.

Let me then think of ye, Visions of Light,
Not as the tissue of dreams,
But as realities destined to be
Bright in Futurity’s beams.

Ideals formed by a standard of earth
Sink at Reality’s shrine
Into the human and weak like ourselves,
Losing the essence divine;

But the fair pictures that fall from above
On the heart’s mirror sublime
Carry a signature written in tints,
Bright with the future of time.

And the heart, catching them, yieldeth a spark
Under each stroke of the rod-
Sparks that fly upward and light the New Life,
Burning an incense to God!

Adah Isaacs Menken

Today is the birthday of Waylon Jennings (Waylon Arnold Jennings; Littlefield, Texas ; June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002 Chandler, Arizona); singer, songwriter, musician, and actor.  In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Jennings’s first recording session, of “Jole Blon” and “When Sin Stops (Love Begins)”.  Holly hired him to play bass.  In Clear Lake, Iowa, Jennings gave up his seat on the ill-fated flight that crashed and killed Holly, J. P. Richardson, Ritchie Valens, and pilot Roger Peterson.  The day of the flight was later known as the Day the Music Died.  During the 1970s, Jennings joined the Outlaw Country movement.  He released critically acclaimed albums Lonesome, On’ry and Mean and Honky Tonk Heroes followed by hit albums Dreaming My Dreams andAre You Ready for the Country.  In 1976, he released the album Wanted! The Outlaws with Willie Nelson, Tompall Glaser, and Jessi Colter, the first platinum country music album.  That success was followed by Ol’ Waylon and the hit song “Luckenbach, Texas.”  Later, he joined the country supergroup The Highwaymen with Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash, which released three albums between 1985 and 1995.  Jennings also appeared in movies and television series.  He was the balladeer for The Dukes of Hazzard, composing and singing the show’s theme song.  

Someone’s gonna get hurt before you’re through
Someone’s gonna pay for the things you do
How many hearts must break, how many will it take
To satisfy you, just to satisfy you

Another love, another fool
To play your game
Another love, another fool
They’re all the same

Someone’s gonna get hurt before you’re through
Don’t be surprised if that someone is you
You’re gonna find when it’s too late, a heart that just won’t break
To satisfy you, just to satisfy you

How many tears were cried, how many dreams have died
To satisfy you, just to satisfy you

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adah isaacs menken, Mona lisa, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle, waylon jennings

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

believe
in this vision
no doubt

leavin’ traces
for only traces
engender dreams

it started with you,
or the promise
of you

a look and there arose
embers never to subside
and insatiable
curiosity

nothin’ haunts anymore,
save you

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Hushed darkness
Selective self-delusion
Only a heartbeat away
Do you believe. Wise magic
Never is a long time
Must accept as is

Half remembered, half awake
Comin’ into focus now

Was there ever

Any doubt

© copyright 2016 Mac tag all rights reserved

Le Météore du 13 août

• Fureur et mystère (1948), René Char, éd. Gallimard, coll. Poésie, 1962, partie LE POEME PULVERISE (1945-1947), Le Météore du 13 août, p. 203

Un poète doit laisser des traces de son passage, non des preuves. Seules les traces font rêver.

“Le poème est l’amour réalisé du désir demeuré désir”

Les femmes sont amoureuses et les hommes sont solitaires. Ils se volent mutuellement la solitude et l’amour.

Chacune des lettres qui composent ton nom,ô Beauté, au tableau d’honneur des supplices,épouse la plane simplicité du soleil,s’inscrit dans la phrase géante qui barre le ciel,et s’associe à l’homme acharné à tromper son destin avec son contraire indomptable: l’espérance.

Merci, et la Mort s’étonne; – Merci; la Mort n’insiste pas; – Merci, c’est le jour qui s’en va; – Merci simplement à un homme – S’il tient en échec le glas

Tu es plaisir, avec chaque vague séparée de ses suivantes. Enfin toutes à la fois chargent. C’est la mer qui se fonde, qui s’invente. Tu es plaisir, corail de spasmes.

René Char

Mac Tag

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Rene char, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

Dear Zazie,  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.  Has someone spread their dreams and words at your feet?  Have you spread your dreams and words at someone’s feet?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

desire
i have this
this vision
and this way
of bein’ alone
cannot wish nor will
for anything else,
this dream

no more pretendin’
of what was felt
of the inescapable
of what is essential

now, clear
in thinkin’,
and feelin’
to tread not softly
but boldly forward

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Tread Softly

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite poets, William Butler Yeats, born in Sandymount, County Dublin, Ireland (1865).  He lived during great political and social changes in his home country, but he spent much of his life obsessed not with politics but with mysticism.

He got involved in the London Theosophical Society in 1887 and later joined the Order of the Golden Dawn, a group that performed a variety of ancient magic rituals.  He attended séances and tarot card readings.  Seeing the performances of mediums and learning about reincarnation inspired him to study Celtic myths and folklore.

In 1889, he met Maud Gonne, a beautiful actress who had become an activist and who spoke out for Irish independence.  She became the love of his life, and though she refused his proposal of marriage, she believed that they were spiritually married, that they could communicate telepathically, and that they had been brother and sister in a past life.  She helped him gather folklore from the peasants, and to learn about ancient Celtic culture.  Yeats came to believe that if he could get in touch with the deep,  mythic history of the Irish people, he could pull the country together with the power of poetry.  Yeats spent years writing plays about Irish nationalism for Gonne to star in.

Many of Yeats’s poems are inspired by her, or mention her.  He wrote the plays The Countess Cathleen and Cathleen Ní Houlihan for her.  His poem Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven ends with a reference to her:

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Few poets have celebrated a woman’s beauty to the extent Yeats did in his lyric verse about Gonne.  From his second book to Last Poems, she became the Rose, Helen of Troy (in No second Troy), the Ledaean Body (Leda and the Swan and Among School Children), Cathleen Ní Houlihan, Pallas Athene and Deirdre.  Gonne turned down several proposals from Yeats before marrying John McBride with whom she would have a son, Seán MacBride.  She and MacBride would separate in 1904.  Gonne and Yeats finally consummated their relationship in Paris in 1908.  Yeats’ long years of fidelity, so to speak, were rewarded at last, although Yeats would later remark that “the tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.”  The relationship did not develop into a new phase after their night together.  Soon afterwards, Gonne wrote to the poet indicating that despite the physical consummation, they could not continue as they had been: “I have prayed so hard to have all earthly desire taken from my love for you and dearest, loving you as I do, I have prayed and I am praying still that the bodily desire for me may be taken from you too.”  By January 1909, Gonne was sending Yeats letters praising the advantage given to artists who abstain from sex.  Nearly twenty years later, Yeats recalled the night with Gonne in his poem “A Man Young and Old”:

My arms are like the twisted thorn
And yet there beauty lay;
The first of all the tribe lay there
And did such pleasure take;
She who had brought great Hector down
And put all Troy to wreck.

I never tire of tellin’ that story.  So he had a muse and a great unrequited love.  And then to have consummated that love at long last; in Paris!  How could life be any better!  And then to lose her!  How could life be more bitter!  How well I know the better and the bitter.  If Gonne was correct about the advantage given to artists who abstain from sex, then I can look forward to a writing windfall.

I dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep. – WB Yeats

Hmmm, given up on tryin’ to win someone’s love.  Somethin’ we know a lot about her at TLC.

The Song of the Day is “Tread Softly” by Gráda.  We do not own the rights to this song.  All rights reserved by the rightful owner

 

Today is the birthday of Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella in Muro Lucano June 13, 1877 – November 5, 1946 New York); Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge. He is also associated with the American Precisionist movement of the 1910s–1940s.

Stella returned to Italy in 1909. He was unhappy with America, writing that he longed to be back in his native land after “an enforced stay among enemies, in a black funereal land over which weighed … the curse of a merciless climate.” By 1911, he had departed Italy, where the omnipresence of the Renaissance presented its own kind of obstacle for contemporary painters, and relocated to Paris. When he arrived, “Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism were in full swing,” he wrote, and “[there] was in the air the glamor of a battle.” It was the right place to be, at just the right time, for a man of Stella’s curiosity, openness to new trends, and ambition.

In Paris, Stella attended the salon of Gertrude Stein, where he met many other painters. “[Stein] found the big and boisterous painter rather like [her friend, the poet] Apollinaire; they both had a fund of sarcastic wit that was frequently turned on their hosts.” Stella’s view of his hostess was indeed sarcastic: she sat, he wrote, “enthroned on a sofa in the middle of the room,” surrounded by her Cézannes and Picassos, “with the forceful solemnity of a pythoness or a sibyl … in a high and distant pose.”

Gallery

Purissima

A Vision

Battle of Lights, Coney Island, Mardi Gras, 1913–14, oil on canvas, 195.6 × 215.3 cm (77 × 84.75 in), Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

Man Ray, 1920, Three Heads (Joseph Stella and Marcel Duchamp, painting bust portrait of Man Ray above Duchamp), gelatin silver print, 20.7 x 15.7 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Joseph Stella, 1919–20, Brooklyn Bridge, oil on canvas, 215.3 x 194.6 cm, Yale University Art Gallery

Leon Chwistek

Portrait of Leon Chwistek by Witkacy, 1913

Today is the birthday of Leon Chwistek (Kraków, Austria-Hungary, 13 June 1884 – 20 August 1944, Barvikha near Moscow, Russia); avant-garde painter, theoretician of modern art, literary critic, logician, philosopher and mathematician.

Gallery 

• 

  Fencing 1919

• 

  Portrait Tytus Czyżewski 1920

• 

  Feast 1925

• 

  Venus 1928

• 

  Nude 1939

   

Today is the birthday of Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (Lisbon; June 13, 1888 – November 30, 1935 Lisbon), commonly known as Fernando Pessoa; poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher, in my opinion one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He also wrote in and translated from English and French.Pessoa was a prolific writer, and not only under his own name, for he dreamed up approximately seventy-five others. He did not call them pseudonyms because he felt that did not capture their true independent intellectual life and instead called them heteronyms. These imaginary figures sometimes held unpopular or extreme views.

Verse

 Não tenho ambições nem desejos
Ser poeta não é uma ambição minha
É a minha maneira de estar sozinho.

• I have no ambitions nor desires.
  To be a poet is not my ambition,
  It’s simply my way of being alone.
• Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), O Guardador de Rebanhos (“The Keeper of Herds”, tr. Richard Zenith) in Athena, January 1925.

• Não sou nada.
  Nunca serei nada.
  Não posso querer ser nada.
  À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.
  • I am nothing.
    I shall never be anything.
    I cannot even wish to be anything.
    Apart from this, I have within me all the dreams of the world.
  • Álvaro de Campos (heteronym), Tabacaria (“The Tobacconist’s” or “The Tobacco Shop”), January 15, 1928.
  • Variant translation:

    I am nothing.
    Never shall be anything.
    Cannot will to be anything.
    This apart, I have in me all the dreams of the world.

• A metafísica é uma consequência de estar mal disposto.
  • Metaphysics is a consequence of being indisposed.
  • Tabacaria (1928)

• O poeta é um fingidor.
  Finge tão completamente
  Que chega a fingir que é dor
  A dor que deveras sente.
  • The poet is a pretender.
    He pretends so completely,
    that he even pretends that it is pain
    the pain he really feels.
  • “Autopsicografia”, in Presença, No. 36 (November 1932)
    • Richard Zenith’s translation:
      • The poet is a faker
        Who’s so good at his act
        He even fakes the pain
        Of pain he feels in fact.

• O amor é que é essencial.
  O sexo é só um acidente.
  • It’s love that is inescapable.
    Sex is the merest accident.
  • Poem (5 April 1935), reported in Poesias inéditas (1930-1935), p. 192.
  • Variant translation:

    Love is essential. Sex, a mere accident.

Clear in thinking, and clear in feeling,
and clear in wanting

• Original: Claro em pensar, e claro no sentir,
  e claro no querer
• Poem “D. Pedro”, verses 1-2

Without madness what is man
more than the healthy beast,
corpse adjourned that procreates?

• Original: Sem a loucura que é o homem
  Mais que a besta sadia,
  Cadáver adiado que procria?
• Poem “D. Sebastião”, verses 8-10

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cowboy coleridge, fernando pessoa, grada, joseph stella, leon chwistek, love letter, love poem, love song, maud gonne, muse, poem a day, poem of the day, Rhett, song of the day, tea with tater, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle, tla, tread softly, twt, william butler yeats, Zazie

Dear Zazie,  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse.  Do you have the right words for the right one?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

ordinary, does not interest
seekin’ only the high moments
for you, for me

for a losin’ all control,
fallin’ and lettin’ go,
knowin’ you will be caught feelin’

it was that way
please,
please tell me,
it was that way

a fragmentation
did i dream you
do you exist
at times it feels
as if you were here
at other times
it feels as if
you were long ago

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

caution…
will talk on and on
about good light
will pull the truck over
to write some verse
will git lost
in daydreams,
in your eyes

the moon comes and goes,
a river on a starry night
look round you
can it be as it was

roam wheresoe’er i may,
by night or day
the things i have seen
i cannot forget

must accept as is

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

At first my words were few
And far between
I was holdin’
And foldin’ ’em
Not to be heard
Not to be seen
When my words came
They were too harsh
I was throwin’ ’em
And blowin’ ’em
With no regard
With no respect
Now my words are true
And they are real
I’m shapin’ ’em
And makin’ ’em
Just what I feel
Just for you

© copyright 1998 mac tag all rights reserved

Today is the birthday of Egon Schiele (Tulln an der Donau, Austro-Hungarian Empire; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918 Vienna); painter.  A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century.  His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and the many self-portraits the artist produced, including naked self-portraits.  The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele’s paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism.In 1911, Schiele met the seventeen-year-old Walburga (Wally) Neuzil, who lived with him in Vienna and served as a model for some of his most striking paintings.  Very little is known of her, except that she had previously modelled for Gustav Klimt and might have been one of his mistresses.  Schiele and Wally went to the small town of Český Krumlov (Krumau) in southern Bohemia.  Krumau was the birthplace of Schiele’s mother; today it is the site of a museum dedicated to Schiele.  Despite Schiele’s family connections in Krumau, he and his lover were driven out of the town by the residents, who strongly disapproved of their lifestyle, including his alleged employment of the town’s teenage girls as models.  In 1914, Schiele glimpsed the sisters Edith and Adéle Harms, who lived with their parents across the street from his studio in the Viennese suburb of Hietzing, 101 Hietzinger Hauptstrasse.  In 1915, Schiele chose to marry the more socially acceptable Edith, but had apparently expected to maintain a relationship with Wally.  However, when he explained the situation to Wally, she left him immediately and never saw him again.  This abandonment led him to paint Death and the Maiden, where Wally’s portrait is based on a previous pairing, but Schiele’s is newly struck. Despite some opposition from the Harms family, Schiele and Edith were married on 17 June 1915, the anniversary of the wedding of Schiele’s parents.  In the autumn of 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic that claimed more than 20,000,000 lives in Europe reached Vienna.  Edith, who was six months pregnant, succumbed to the disease on 28 October.  Schiele died only three days after his wife.  He was 28 years old.  During the three days between their deaths, Schiele drew a few sketches of Edith.

Gallery

Portrait of Arthur Rössler, 1910

Photograph of Schiele, 1914

 Schiele’s drawing of his prison cell in Neulengbach

 Edith Schiele 1915

 Photograph of Schiele, 1910s

Portrait of Anton Peschka 1909

Living room in Neulengbach, 1911

Self portrait

 Max Oppenheimer 1910

 Portrait of Wally, 1912

• 

  _{Self portrait, 1910}

• 

  _{Self portrait grimacing, 1910}

• 

  _{Self portrait with black clay pot, 1911}

• 

  _{Self-portrait with his head down, (1912)}

• 

  _{I shall endure for art and for the happiness of my lover. Self-portrait of Schiele in jail, 1912}

• 

  _{Lovers – Self-Portrait With Wally, c. 1914 – 1915}

• 

  _{Self portrait, 1914}

• 

  _{Self portrait, 1915}

• 

  _{Girl with black hair 1910}

• 

  _{Reclining nude, 1910}

• 

  _{Nude with Red Garters, 1911}

• 

  _{Semi-nude Reclining 1911}

• 

  _{Valerie Neuzil in black stockings, 1913}

• 

  _{Friendship, 1913}

• 

  _{Seated female nude with elbows propped, 1914.}

• 

  _{Frederike Beer, 1914}

• 

  _{Blonde girl in green stockings, 1914}

• 

  _{Green Stockings, 1914}

• 

  _{Two Women}

• 

  _{Mother with two children II – 1915}

• 

  _Children

• 

  _{Pair embracing, 1917}

• 

  _{Woman (1917).}

• 

  _{Kneeling Girl, Resting on Both Elbows 1917}

• 

  _{Seated woman with bent knee, 1917}

• 

  _{Sitting girl, 1917}

• 

  _{Nude 1917}

• 

  _{The Family, 1918}

• 

  Die kleine Stadt II, 1912–1913. View of Krumau an der Moldau

• 

  Four trees (Vier Bäume), 1917

• 

  Stein an der Donau II, 1913

• 

  The Bridge (Die Brücke), 1913

• 

  Old Mill (Alte Mühle), 1916

• 

  House with Shingles, 1915

Today is the birthday of Djuna Barnes (Storm King Mountain, New York; June 12, 1892 – June 18, 1982 New York City); novelist, poet, playwright, and artist best known for her novel Nightwood (1936), a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist literature.

Someday beneath some hard
Capricious star —
Spreading its light a little
Over far,
We’ll know you for the woman
That you are.

• From Fifth Avenue Up

Somewhere beneath her hurried curse,
A corpse lies bounding in a hearse;
And friends and relatives disperse,
And are not stirred.

• From Third Avenue On

• One sees you sitting in the sun
  Asleep;
  With the sweeter gifts you had
  And didn’t keep,
  One grieves that the altars of
  Your vice lie deep.
  • Twilight of the Illicit
• We watched her come with subtle fire
  And learned feet,
  Stumbling among the lustful drunk
  Yet somehow sweet.We saw the crimson leave her cheeks
  Flame in her eyes;
  For when a woman lives in awful haste
  A woman dies.The jests that lit our hours by night
  And made them gay,
  Soiled a sweet and ignorant soul
  And fouled its play.
  • To a Cabaret Dancer

Mac Tag

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cowboy coleridge, djuna barnes, egon schiele, mac tag, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

Dear Zazie,  Here is today’s Lovers’ Almanac from Mac Tag.  Remember y’all, at TLA we celebrate all forms of love; true love, lost love, unrequited love, mad love, shadow love, random love, and abandoned love.  Rhett

The Lovers’ Almanac

Dear Muse,

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

a name
in an endless night
a call
a pleadin’,
in the sleepless mind,
to give
that which is needed

always there
in the shadows
in the recesses
of the restless mind

since first appearance
come unannounced
stay till want filled
and leave taken
when pleased

the point
where this is all
that is left
the only comfort

have to have
the verse

into the silence,
in this unforgivin’ night
in the vesture of sorrow

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Callin’ out her name
In the darkness
of an endless night
Callin’ for her to come
To lay beside him
But she would not come

Pleadin’ with her
In the black
of his sleepless mind
Pleadin’ with her to give him
that which he needed
But she took no heed

He knew she was there
She was always there
In the shadows
In the recesses
of his restless mind

Since she had first appeared
she came unannounced
stayed as long as she wanted
and took her leave when she pleased
Now, he needed her

He had reached the point
where she was all he had left
Where she provided
the only comfort
in the pool of his despair

He had to have the words

Then, of a sudden,
into the silence,
in this unforgivin’ night,
she came, and whispered

Vengeance earned is vengeance due
Walk in the vesture of sorrow

© copyright 2016 mac tag all rights reserved

Jonson (c. 1617), by Abraham Blyenberch; oil on canvas painting at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Today is the birthday of Benjamin “Ben” Jonson (Westminster, London; c. 11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637 London); playwright, poet, actor and literary critic, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy.  He popularised the comedy of humours.  Perhaps best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Foxe (1605), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedy (1614) and for his lyric poetry.  Jonson is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I.  Jonson was a classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal, political, artistic, and intellectual) whose cultural influence was felt upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642).

Still to be powder’d, still perfum’d,
Lady, it is to be presum’d,
Though art’s hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free,
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art:
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

• Epicene, or The Silent Woman (1609), Act I, scene I

The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616)

The Forest

• Come my Celia, let us prove,
  While we can, the sports of love;
  Time will not be ours forever,
  He at length our good will sever.
  Spend not then his gifts in vain;
  Suns that set may rise again,
  But if once we lose this light,
  ‘Tis with us perpetual night.
  Why should we defer our joys?
  Fame and rumour are but toys.
  • Song, To Celia, lines 1-10.
    • Compare Catullus, Carmina V

• Follow a shadow, it still flies you;
  Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
  So court a mistress, she denies you;
  Let her alone, she will court you.
  • That Women Are But Men’s Shadows, lines 1-4.

• Drink to me only with thine eyes,
  And I will pledge with mine;
  Or leave a kiss but in the cup
  And I’ll not look for wine.
  The thirst that from the soul doth rise
  Doth ask a drink divine;
  But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
  I would not change for thine.
  I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
  Not so much honoring thee
  As giving it a hope that there
  It could not withered be.
  But thou thereon didst only breathe,
  And sent’st it back to me;
  Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
  Not of itself, but thee.
  • Song, To Celia, lines 1-16; this poem was inspired by “Letter XXIV” of Philostratus, which in translation reads: “Drink to me with your eyes alone… And if you will, take the cup to your lips and fill it with kisses, and give it so to me”.

The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640)

Underwoods

• I now think, Love is rather deaf, than blind,
  For else it could not be,
  That she,
  Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
  And cast my love behind.
  • IX, My Picture Left in Scotland, lines 1-5.

The voice so sweet, the words so fair,
As some soft chime had stroked the air;
And, though the sound were parted thence,
Still left an echo in the sense.

• LXXXIV, Eupheme, part 4, lines 37-40

Today is the birthday of John Constable (East Bergholt, Suffolk, East Anglia 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837 Hampstead, London); Romantic painter. Perhaps best known for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as “Constable Country”. “I should paint my own places best”, he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, “painting is but another word for feeling”.  His most famous paintings include Wivenhoe Park of 1816, Dedham Vale of 1802 and The Hay Wain of 1821.  Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, Constable was never financially successful.  He did not become a member of the establishment until he was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52.  His work was embraced in France, where he sold more works than in his native England and inspired the Barbizon school.

His childhood friendship with Maria Elizabeth Bicknell developed into a deep, mutual love.  Their marriage in October 1816 at St Martin-in-the-Fields was followed by a honeymoon tour of the south coast.  The sea at Weymouth and Brighton stimulated Constable to develop new techniques of colour and brushwork.  After the birth of their seventh child in January 1828, Maria fell ill and died of tuberculosis on 23 November, at the age of 41.  Intensely saddened, Constable wrote to his brother Golding, “hourly do I feel the loss of my departed Angel—God only knows how my children will be brought up…the face of the World is totally changed to me”.  Thereafter, he dressed in black and was, “a prey to melancholy and anxious thoughts”.  He cared for his seven children alone for the rest of his life.

Gallery 

Constable by Daniel Gardner, 1796

Self-portrait 1806, pencil on paper, Tate Gallery London. His only indisputable self-portrait, drawn by an arrangement of mirrors.

 Dedham Vale (1802)

“

For the last two years I have been running after pictures, and seeking the truth at second hand… I have not endeavoured to represent nature with the same elevation of mind with which I set out, but have rather tried to make my performances look like the work of other men…There is room enough for a natural painter. The great vice of the present day is bravura, an attempt to do something beyond the truth.

”

 Wivenhoe Park (1816)

Maria Bicknell, painted by Constable in 1816

 Weymouth Bay (c. 1816)

 John Constable – The Quarters behind Alresford Hall, 1816

 The Hay Wain (1821)

 The Cornfield (1826)

Seascape Study with Rain Cloud (c.1824)

• 

  Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds c. 1825. As a gesture of appreciation for John Fisher, the Bishop of Salisbury, who commissioned this painting, Constable included the Bishop and his wife in the canvas. Their figures can be seen at the bottom left of the painting, behind the fence and under the shade of the trees.

• 

  The Opening of Waterloo Bridge seen from Whitehall Stairs, 18 June 1817, oil on canvas, c. 1832. Tate Britain

Today is the birthday of Julia Margaret Cameron (née Pattle; 11 June 1815 Calcutta – 26 January 1879 Kalutara, Ceylon); photographer.   Perhaps best known for her portraits of celebrities and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary or heroic themes.  Cameron’s photographic career spanned eleven years (1864–1875).  She took up photography at the age of 48, when she was given a camera as a present.  Her style was not widely appreciated in her own day: her choice to use a soft focus and to treat photography as an art as well as a science, by manipulating the wet collodion process.  She found more acceptance among pre-Raphaelite artists than among photographers.  Her work has had an impact on modern photographers, especially her closely cropped portraits.  Her house, Dimbola Lodge, on the Isle of Wight is open to the public.

In her photography, Cameron strove to capture beauty. She wrote, “I longed to arrest all the beauty that came before me and at length the longing has been satisfied.”

Gallery

Cameron by George Frederic Watts, c. 1850–1852

 An 1864 photograph by Cameron of her husband, Charles Hay Cameron (1795–1881)

 Sir John Herschel. Photograph by Cameron, 1867

Alfred Lord Tennyson. Carbon print by Cameron, 1869

 Henry Thoby Prinsep of London. Photograph by Cameron, 1866

Study of King David, by Julia Margaret Cameron. Depicts Sir Henry Taylor, 1866

“Annie, my first success”, 29 January 1864. Cameron’s first print with which she was satisfied

The Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry photographed by Cameron in 1864

 “Beatrice Cenci” (1866), a study for a photographic series devoted to Cenci by Julia Margaret Cameron

Parting of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere (1874)

 Cameron portrait of Julia Prinsep Jackson, later Julia Stephen, Cameron’s niece, favourite subject, and the mother of the author Virginia Woolf

• 

  Painting by George Frederic Watts – 1850-1852

• 

  Photograph by her brother-in-law Charles Somers Somers-Cocks, 3rd Earl Somers, c. 1860

• 

  Portrait by Henry Herschel Hay Cameron – 1870

• 

  Portrait by Henry Herschel Hay Cameron – 1870

• 

  Drawing of Julia Margaret Cameron by James Prinsep (Date Unknown)

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ben jonson, john constable, julia margaret cameron, renee vivien, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle, william styron

Dear Zazie,  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.  Are you holdin’ on?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

one for Jett…

a year to the day
since she went away
not a stretch to say
barley survived
but still standin’
no more killin’ time
now time for doin’
as should be done…

“But you must care.
You must hold on.”
i told you
never hold on
why hold on
but, dang
you were right

at least partly

the first time
i saw you
i knew…

two people
who believe
above all else

one must be,
to hold the other

once, in the arms,
tell me, tell me

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

restless
somethin’ callin’, pullin’…

“But you must care. You must.
You must hold on to something.”
never hold on
why hold on
everything held on to… fades

“The first time I saw you
I knew…”

everything would burn

two people who love
the dream above all else
will soon vanish together

one must be, to hold
the other one
and the pain in bein’;
that is what will be

once, in the arms,
pressed, feelin’, sayin’;
“Tell me. Tell me!”

a song of the sea
a sad day

© copyright 2016 mac tag all rights reserved

Today is the birthday of Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (Ornans, Doubs ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877 La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland); painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting.  Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists.  His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists.  Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.  His paintings challenged convention by depicting peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects.  He also painted landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes.  He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death.

Gallery

Courbet c. 1860s
(portrait by Étienne Carjat)

 

 L’homme à la pipe (Self-portrait, Man with a pipe), 1848–49, Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Les Demoiselles du bord de la Seine, 1856, Petit Palais, Paris

 The Wave (La Vague), 1869, oil on canvas, 66 x 90 cm, Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon

A Burial at Ornans, 1849–50, oil on canvas, 314 x 663 cm (123.6 x 261 inches), Musee d’Orsay, Paris. Exhibition at the 1850–1851 Paris Salon created an “explosive reaction” and brought Courbet instant fame.”

 The Artist’s Studio (L’Atelier du peintre): A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Artistic and Moral Life, 1855, 359 × 598 cm (141.33 × 235.43 in), oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

 Portrait of Jo (La belle Irlandaise), 1865–66, Metropolitan Museum of Art, a painting of Joanna Hiffernan, the probable model for L’Origine du monde and for Sleep

Nude Woman with a Dog (Femme nue au chien), c. 1861–62, oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris

 One of a series of still-life paintings Courbet made while in prison for his role in the Commune (1871). He was allowed an easel and paints, but he could not have models pose for him.

 The Trout, 1871

 Claude Monet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (right section), with Gustave Courbet, 1865–66, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

• 

  Self-portrait with Black Dog, 1842

• 

  Self-portrait, 1842

• 

  The Cellist, Self-portrait, 1847

• Portraits
• 

  Portrait of Paul Ansout, c. 1842–43

• 

  Portrait of H. J. van Wisselingh, 1846

• 

  Zélie Courbet, 1847

• 

  Portrait of Baudelaire, 1848

• 

  Proudhon and his children, 1865

• 

  Portrait of Countess Karoly, 1865

• 

  Spanish Woman, 1854

• Landscapes
• 

  Cliffs at Etretat, After the Storm, 1870

• 

  The Wave, 1870

• 

  Sea Coast in Normandy, 1867

• 

  The Pont Ambroix Languedoc, 1857

• 

  Stream in the Jura Mountains (The Torrent), 1872–73, Honolulu Museum of Art

• 

  Snow effect, c. 1860s

• 

  Grotto of Sarrazine near Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne, c. 1875

• 

  The Castle of Chillon, 1874

• Nudes
• 

  Les Bas Blancs, (Woman with White Stockings), 1864, Barnes Foundation

• 

  Woman with a Parrot, 1866, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• 

  Femme nue couchée, 1862

• 

  Le Sommeil (Sleep), 1866, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris

• 

  Young Bather, 1866

• 

  The Origin of the World (L’Origine du monde), 1866, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

• 

  The Bather, 1868, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• 

  The Source, 1868, Musée d’Orsay

• 

  The Hammock, 1844

• 

  The Sculptor, 1845

• 

  After Dinner at Ornans, 1849

• 

  The Stone Breakers, 1849

• 

  Farmers of Flagey on the Return From the Market, 1850, Museum of Art, Besançon

• 

  The Meeting (“Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet”), 1854, Musée Fabre, Montpellier

• 

  The Grain Sifters (Les Cribleuses de blé), 1854

• 

  The Trellis, 1862, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio

• 

  Fox In The Snow, 1860, Dallas Museum of Art

• 

  Girl with Seagulls, 1865

• 

  The Greyhounds of the Comte de Choiseul, 1866

• 

  The kill of deer, 1867, Museum of Art, Besancon

Today is the birthday of Edwin Arnold (Gravesend, Gravesham, Kent, 10 June 1832 – 24 March 1904 London); poet and journalist, perhaps best known for his work The Light of Asia.

Sir Edwin was married three times. His first wife was Katherine Elizabeth Biddulph, of London, who died in 1864. Next he married Jennie Channing of Boston, who died in 1889. In his later years Arnold resided for some time in Japan, and his third wife, Tama Kurokawa, was Japanese.

We are the voices of the wandering wind,
Which moan for rest and rest can never find;
Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life,
A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife.

• The Deva’s Song

Mac Tag

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andre derain, cowboy coleridge, edwin arnold, gustave courbet, mac tag, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

Dear Zazie Lee,  Here is the latest Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

wave tossed guy
sun bleached hair
wavin’ in the wind
walkin’ in the surf
bottle of mezcal
in one hand
tryin’ to make
a little sense
of the mess
that was made
and what it took
to finally git here

the lost years
the sacrifices
includin’, almost,
the ultimate one

to quiet the roar
encroachin’ each day
to make peace
with the trail
of heartache
left behind

so the search
continues
and this verse
for that is all
that will be left
this trail of poems

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge

Picture this my dear:
An ocean of words
washin’ up
on a beach
Wave tossed guy,
sun bleached hair
wavin’ in the wind,
walkin’ in the surf
by himself
Bottle of Tequila
in one hand
and with the other,
gatherin’ up words
Carefully
choosin’ each
one, lookin’
for the gems
the ones with the right
feel, the right rhythm
to explain,
to make sense
of this mess
that he has made
To quiet the roar
encroachin’ each day
To make peace
with the trail
of heartache
left behind
So he keeps searchin’
and writin’ these words
For that is how
he will be known
by the trail
of his poems

© copyright 2016 mac tag all rights reserved

 

Today is the birthday of Michael Ancher (Michael Peter Ancher; Rutsker, 9 June 1849 – 19 September 1927); realist artist. He is remembered above all for his paintings of fishermen and other scenes from the Danish fishing community in Skagen.

In 1880 Ancher married fellow painter and Skagen native Anna Brøndum, whose father owned the Brøndums Hotel. In the first years of their marriage, the couple had a home and studio in the “Garden House”, which is now in the garden of the Skagens Museum.

Gallery

self-portrait (1902)

Vil han klare pynten (Will he Round the Point?, 1879)

 Redningsbåden køres gennem klitterne (The Lifeboat is Taken through the Dunes)

 A stroll on the beach

• 

  Appraising the Day’s Work, 1883, Anna and Michael Ancher looking at their work

• 

  Christmas Day 1900

• 

  To fiskere ved en båd (Two Fishermen by a boat)

• 

  Strandscene (Beach scene)

• 

  Den røde redningsbåd sejler ud The red lifeboat on its way out to the sea

• 

  A Baptism

• 

  Portrait of my wife. The painter Anna Ancher

• 

  Anna Ancher returning from the field

• 

  Unfinished portrait of Adrian Stokes

• 

  Skagens fiskere (Skagen fisherman)

• 

  Skagen girl, Maren Sofie, knittingCole Porter in the 1930s

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cole porter, michael ancher, the lovers chronicle

Dear Zazie,  Here is the latest edition of The Lovers’ Chronicle by Mac Tag.   Are you carryin’ any burdens?  Do they keep you up at night?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

a man no longer restless,
lies in bed beside a woman,
she dozes, he lies there grateful
weary no more, for the burdens carried
have been left behind on the broken trail

as his thoughts fill with memories gathered
from pursuits of pleasures together,
he clings to the dream come true

© copyright 2022 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

a man, restless in bed
beside a woman he just met
she dozes, he lies there listenin’
weary of the burdens he carries,
or rather, from the burdens created
the memories from the broken trails,
the regrets from the choices made

for love left behind, for bein’
one of the unforgiven religion
thoughts fill with shadows gathered
from past pursuits of fleetin’ pleasures
the what ifs and questions suspended
above in the mountain night, deep in silence

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Inside the house; a man, restless in bed beside a woman
he just met. She dozes, he lies there listenin’, eyes wide
shut in the dark, no doubt hearin’ Her callin’. He looks
weary with all the burdens he has to carry, or rather, from
the burdens he has created for himself; like the memories
from the trail of broken hearts, the regrets from the choices
made, for love left behind, for bein’ one of the unforgiven
religion. His thoughts fill with shadows gathered from his
past pursuits of fleetin’ pleasures. Above him, the what ifs,
sighs, and questions; suspended, while off in the mountain
night, deep in silence, She awaits there with Her power that
moves through the world and makes his hair stand on end.
She is there, knowin’ a storm will soon sweep down the valley
and knowin’ the answers yet keepin’ them to Herself until……

© 2014 Mac Tag Cowboy Coleridge All rights reserved

Today is the birthday of John Everett Millais (Southampton 8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896 Kensington); painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Gallery

 Photo of Millais, c. 1854

A lost love

 Mariana, 1851

• 

  The Order of Release (1853) Tate Britain, London

• 

  Ophelia (1852) Tate Britain, London

• 

  The Return of the Dove to the Ark (1851) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

 

 Millais later in his career

• 

  Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru (1846), Victoria and Albert Museum, London

• 

  The Tribe of Benjamin Seizing the Daughters of Shiloh (1847)

• 

  Isabella (1849) Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

• 

  Christ in the House of His Parents (1850) Tate Britain, London

• 

  A Huguenot on St Bartholomew’s Day (1852)

• 

  The Proscribed Royalist, 1651 (1853) Lord Lloyd Webber

• 

  Sir Isumbras at the Ford (1857) Lady Lever Art Gallery

• 

  The Vale of Rest (1858) Tate Britain, London

• 

  The Black Brunswicker (1860)

• 

  Esther (1865) Private Collection

• 

  Jephthah (1867) National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

• 

  Vanessa (1868) Liverpool Museums Service

• 

  Portrait of the Marquess of Lorne. National Gallery of Canada

• 

  The Boyhood of Raleigh (1871)

• 

  Victory O Lord! (1871) Manchester Art Gallery

• 

  Portrait of Effie Millais (1873) Perth Museum and Art Gallery

• 

  The Two Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower (1878) Picture Gallery of Royal Holloway College

• 

  The Northwest Passage (1878) Tate Britain, London

• 

  Cherry Ripe (1879) Private Collection

• 

  John Henry Newman (1881) National Portrait Gallery (London)

• 

  Bubbles (1886) Royal Academy of Arts

• 

  A Jersey Lily: Portrait of Lillie Langtry Jersey Museum Service

• 

  Effie Deans 

• 

  Self portrait Uffizi Portrait Collection Florence

• 

  John Ruskin (1853–54) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

• 

  The Knight Errant (1870) Tate Britain, London

• 

  The Martyr of the Solway (c. 1871) Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

• 

  The Farmer’s Daughter (1863)

Today is the birthday of Steven John Fromholz (Temple, Texas, June 8, 1945 – January 19, 2014 Eldorado, Texas); entertainer, singer-songwriter who was selected as the Poet Laureate of Texas for 2007.

at the 2007 Texas Book Festival

I’d Have to Be Crazy

I’d have to be crazy
To stop all my singing
And never play music again

You’d call me a fool
If I grabbed up a top hat
And ran out to flag down the wind

I’d have to be weird
To grow me a beard
Just to see what the rednecks would do

But I’d have to be crazy
Plum out of my mind
To fall out of love with you

Now I know I’ve done weird things
I told people I heard things
When silence was all that abounds

Been days when it pleased me
To be on my knees
Following ants, as they crawled across the ground

I’ve been insane on a train
But I’m still me again
The place where I hold you is true

So I know I’m alright
‘Cause I’d have to be crazy
To fall out of love with you

Now I don’t intend to
But should there come a day
When I say that I don’t love you
You can love me away

I sure would be dingy
To live in an envelope
Waiting alone for a stamp

You’d swear I was loco
To rub for a genie
While burning my hand on the lamp

And I may not be normal
But nobody is
So I’d like to say ‘fore I’m through

I’d have to be crazy
Plumb out of my mind
To fall out of love with you

I’d have to be crazy
Plumb out of my mind
To fall out of love with you

Songwriters: STEVEN FROMHOLZ

© BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC

For non-commercial use only.

“I could tell you stories ’bout the Indians on the plain
Talk about Wells Fargo and the comin’ of the trains
Talk of the slaughter of the buffalo that roamed
Sing a song of settlers come out looking for a home.”

[Chorus:]
Now, the man with the big hat is buyin’
Drink up while the drinkin’ is free
Drink up to the cowboys a-dead or a-dyin’
Drink to my compadres and me
Drink to my compadres and me

Well, his shirt was brown and faded
And his hat was wide and black
And the pants that once were blue were grey and had a pocket gone in back
He had a finger missin’ from the hand that rolled the smoke
He laughed and talked of cowboy life, but you knew it weren’t no joke
He said…

“I seen the day so hot your pony could not stand
And if your water bag was dry, don’t count upon the land
And winters… I’ve seen winters when your boots froze in the snow
And your only thought was leavin’, but you had nowhere to go

[Chorus]

Well, he rested easy at the bar, his foot upon the rail
And laughed and talked of times he’d had out livin’ on the trail
The silence was never broken as the words poured from his lips
Quiet as the forty five he carried on his hip, he said…

“I rode the cattle drive from here to San Antone
Ten days in the saddle, you know, and weary to the bone
I rode from here to Wichita without a woman’s smile
The camp fire where I cooked my beans was the only light for miles

[Chorus]

Well, he rolled another cigarette as he turned toward the door
I heard his spurs a jinglin’ as his boot heels hit the floor
He loosened up his belt a notch, pulled his hat down on his head
As he turned to say goodbye to me, this is what he said…

“Now, the high-lines chase the highways, and the fences close the range
And to see a workin’ cowboy – that’s a sight that’s mighty strange.”
But a cowboy’s life was lonely, and his lot was not the best
But if it hadn’t been for men like me, there wouldn’t be no west

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