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Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal
(1829-1862)
Love and Hate
Ope not thy lips, thou foolish one,
Nor turn to me thy face;
The blasts of heaven shall strike thee down
Ere I will give thee grace.
Take thou thy shadow from my path,
Nor turn to me and pray;
The wild wild winds thy dirge may sing
Ere I will bid thee stay.
Turn thou away thy false dark eyes,
Nor gaze upon my face;
Great love I bore thee: now great hate
Sits grimly in its place.
All changes pass me like a dream,
I neither sing nor pray;
And thou art like the poisonous tree
That stole my life away.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal poems
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Lizzy Siddal, Siddal, Lizzy
George Sand
(1804-1876)
Chatterton
Quand vous aurez prouvé, messieurs du journalisme,
Que Chatterton eut tort de mourir ignoré,
Qu’au Théâtre-Français on l’a défiguré,
Quand vous aurez crié sept fois à l’athéisme,
Sept fois au contresens et sept fois au sophisme,
Vous n’aurez pas prouvé que je n’ai pas pleuré.
Et si mes pleurs ont tort devant le pédantisme,
Savez-vous, moucherons, ce que je vous dirai ?
Je vous dirai : ” Sachez que les larmes humaines
Ressemblent en grandeur aux flots de l’Océan ;
On n’en fait rien de bon en les analysant ;
Quand vous en puiseriez deux tonnes toutes pleines,
En les faisant sécher, vous n’en aurez demain
Qu’un méchant grain de sel dans le creux de la main. ”
George Sand poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Chatterton, Thomas, George Sand, Thomas Chatterton
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal
(1829-1862)
Four Poems
A Silent Wood
O silent wood, I enter thee
With a heart so full of misery
For all the voices from the trees
And the ferns that cling about my knees.
In thy darkest shadow let me sit
When the grey owls about thee flit;
There will I ask of thee a boon,
That I may not faint or die or swoon.
Gazing through the gloom like one
Whose life and hopes are also done,
Frozen like a thing of stone
I sit in thy shadow but not alone.
Can God bring back the day when we two stood
Beneath the clinging trees in that dark wood?
He and She and Angels Three
Ruthless hands have torn her
From one that loved her well;
Angels have upborn her,
Christ her grief to tell.
She shall stand to listen,
She shall stand and sing,
Till three winged angels
Her lover’s soul shall bring.
He and she and the angels three
Before God’s face shall stand;
There they shall pray among themselves
And sing at His right hand.
Early Death
Oh grieve not with thy bitter tears
The life that passes fast;
The gates of heaven will open wide
And take me in at last.
Then sit down meekly at my side
And watch my young life flee;
Then solemn peace of holy death
Come quickly unto thee.
But true love, seek me in the throng
Of spirits floating past,
And I will take thee by the hands
And know thee mine at last.
Dead Love
Oh never weep for love that’s dead
Since love is seldom true
But changes his fashion from blue to red,
From brightest red to blue,
And love was born to an early death
And is so seldom true.
Then harbour no smile on your bonny face
To win the deepest sigh.
The fairest words on truest lips
Pass on and surely die,
And you will stand alone, my dear,
When wintry winds draw nigh.
Sweet, never weep for what cannot be,
For this God has not given.
If the merest dream of love were true
Then, sweet, we should be in heaven,
And this is only earth, my dear,
Where true love is not given.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal – poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
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Thomas Chatterton
(1752-1770)
A New Song
Ah blame me not, Catcott, if from the right way
My notions and actions run far.
How can my ideas do other but stray,
Deprived of their ruling North-Star?
A blame me not, Broderip, if mounted aloft,
I chatter and spoil the dull air;
How can I imagine thy foppery soft,
When discord’s the voice of my fair?
If Turner remitted my bluster and rhymes,
If Hardind was girlish and cold,
If never an ogle was got from Miss Grimes,
If Flavia was blasted and old;
I chose without liking, and left without pain,
Nor welcomed the frown with a sigh;
I scorned, like a monkey, to dangle my chain,
And paint them new charms with a lie.
Once Cotton was handsome; I flam’d and I burn’d,
I died to obtain the bright queen;
But when I beheld my epistle return’d,
By Jesu it alter’d the scene.
She’s damnable ugly, my Vanity cried,
You lie, says my Conscience, you lie;
Resolving to follow the dictates of Pride,
I’d view her a hag to my eye.
But should she regain her bright lustre again,
And shine in her natural charms,
‘Tis but to accept of the works of my pen,
And permit me to use my own arms.
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Chatterton, Thomas, Thomas Chatterton
Tate Britain London
Pre-Raphaelites:
Victorian Avant-Garde
until 13 January 2013
Combining rebellion and revivalism, scientific precision and imaginative grandeur, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood shook the art world of mid-nineteenth-century Britain. This autumn, Tate Britain stages the largest survey of the group since 1984, offering a rare chance to see around 180 works brought together. Exploring their revolutionary ideas about art and society, this exhibition sets out to show that the Pre-Raphaelites were Britain’s first modern art movement. It includes famous and less familiar Pre-Raphaelite paintings as well as sculpture, photography and the applied arts.
Led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelites rebelled against the art establishment of their day. Their unflinchingly radical style, inspired by the purity of early Renaissance painting, defied convention, provoked critics and entranced audiences.
Today, renowned for their exquisitely detailed, vividly coloured style, the works of the Pre-Raphaelites are among the best known of all English paintings. This exhibition traces developments from their formation in 1848 through to their late Symbolist creations of the 1890s. It shows that whether their subjects were taken from modern life or literature, the New Testament or classical mythology, the Pre-Raphaelites were committed to the idea of art’s potential to change society. In pieces such as Madox Brown’s The Last of England 1852-5 (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery) they served this aim by representing topical social issues and challenging prevailing attitudes. Other artworks, including Burne-Jones’s King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid 1884 (Tate), took a different approach, embracing beauty and ornamentation as a resistance to an increasingly industrialised society.
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde offers the chance to see well-known paintings such as Ophelia 1851-2 (Tate) by John Everett Millais (1829-1896) and The Scapegoat 1854-5 (National Museums Liverpool) by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910). Highlights include masterpieces rarely seen in the UK such as Rossetti’s Found 1854-5/1859-81 (Delaware Art Museum, USA), Burne-Jones’s Perseus series (Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart) and Holman Hunt’s psychedelic The Lady of Shalott 1886-1905 (Wadsworth Atheneum, Connecticut). Spectacular late works by Hunt, Millais, Rossetti and Madox Brown are also united for the exhibition.
In contrast to previous Pre-Raphaelite surveys, this exhibition juxtaposes paintings with works in other media including textiles, stained glass and furniture, showing the influence of Pre-Raphaelitism in the early development of the Arts and Crafts movement and the socialist ideas of the poet, designer and theorist, William Morris (1834-1896). Bringing together furniture and objects designed by Morris‘s firm, of which many Pre-Raphaelite artists were part, it demonstrates how Morris’s iconography for British socialism ultimately evolved out of Pre-Raphaelitism. Highlights include Philip Webb and Burne-Jones’s The Prioress’s Tale wardrobe 1858 and the embroideries made by Jane and May Morris for William Morris’s bed at Kelmscott Manor c1891.
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde is curated by Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University; Jason Rosenfeld, Distinguished Chair and Professor of Art History at Marymount Manhattan College, New York; Alison Smith, Lead Curator, 19th Century British Art at Tate Britain. It is accompanied by a catalogue from Tate Publishing. The exhibition will tour to the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (17 February – 19 May 2013), The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow (Summer 2013) and the Mori Art Center, Tokyo (Spring 2014).
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: *The Pre-Raphaelites Archive
Dante Alighieri
(1265-1321)
Death, always cruel
Eath, always cruel, Pity’s foe in chief,
Mother who brought forth grief,
Merciless judgment and without appeal!
Since thou alone hast made my heart to feel
This sadness and unweal,
My tongue upbraideth thee without relief.
And now (for I must rid thy name of ruth)
Behoves me speak the truth
Touching thy cruelty and wickedness:
Not that they be not known; but ne’ertheless
I would give hate more stress
With them that feed on love in very sooth.
Out of this world thou hast driven courtesy,
And virtue, dearly prized in womanhood;
And out of youth’s gay mood
The lovely lightness is quite gone through thee.
Whom now I mourn, no man shall learn from me
Save by the measure of these praises given.
Whoso deserves not Heaven
May never hope to have her company.
“Death, always cruel” was translated into English by D.G. Rossetti (1828-1882)
Dante Alighieri poetry
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Dante Alighieri, Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal
(1829-1862)
The Passing of Love
O God, forgive me that I ranged
My live into a dream of love!
Will tears of anguish never wash
The passion from my blood?
Love kept my heart in a song of joy,
My pulses quivered to the tune;
The coldest blasts of winter blew
Upon me like sweet airs in June.
Love floated on the mists of morn
And rested on the sunset’s rays;
He calmed the thunder of the storm
And lighted all my ways.
Love held me joyful through the day
And dreaming ever through the night;
No evil thing could come to me,
My spirit was so light.
O Heaven help my foolish heart
Which heeded not the passing time
That dragged my idol from its place
And shattered all its shrine.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal poems
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Lizzy Siddal, Siddal, Lizzy
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal
(1829-1862)
True Love
Farewell, Earl Richard,
Tender and brave;
Kneeling I kiss
The dust from thy grave.
Pray for me, Richard,
Lying alone
With hands pleading earnestly,
All in white stone.
Soon must I leave thee
This sweet summer tide;
That other is waiting
To claim his pale bride.
Soon I’ll return to thee
Hopeful and brave,
When the dead leaves
Blow over thy grave.
Then shall they find me
Close at thy head
Watching or fainting,
Sleeping or dead.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal poems
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Lizzy Siddal, Siddal, Lizzy
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal
(1829-1862)
Gone
To touch the glove upon her tender hand,
To watch the jewel sparkle in her ring,
Lifted my heart into a sudden song
As when the wild birds sing.
To touch her shadow on the sunny grass,
To break her pathway through the darkened wood,
Filled all my life with trembling and tears
And silence where I stood.
I watch the shadows gather round my heart,
I live to know that she is gone
Gone gone for ever, like the tender dove
That left the Ark alone.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal poems
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Lizzy Siddal, Siddal, Lizzy
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal
(1829-1862)
Fragment of a Ballad
Many a mile over land and sea
Unsummoned my love returned to me;
I remember not the words he said
But only the trees moaning overhead.
And he came ready to take and bear
The cross I had carried for many a year,
But words came slowly one by one
From frozen lips shut still and dumb.
How sounded my words so still and slow
To the great strong heart that loved me so,
Who came to save me from pain and wrong
And to comfort me with his love so strong?
I felt the wind strike chill and cold
And vapours rise from the red-brown mould;
I felt the spell that held my breath
Bending me down to a living death.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal poems
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Lizzy Siddal, Siddal, Lizzy
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal
(1829-1862)
Shepherd Turned Sailor
Now Christ ye save yon bonny shepherd
Sailing on the sea;
Ten thousand souls are sailing there
But they belong to Thee.
If he is lost then all is lost
And all is dead to me.
My love should have a grey head-stonee
And green moss at his feet
And clinging grass above his breast
Whereon his lambs could bleat,
And I should know the span of earth
Where some day I might sleep.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal poems
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Lizzy Siddal, Siddal, Lizzy
Special event at Highgate Cemetery London
for the 150th anniversary of Lizzie Siddal’s death
February 11th is the 150th anniversary of Lizzie’s death. To commemorate this, Highgate Cemetery (Lizzie’s final resting place) is having a Talk at the cemetery on that day by Lucinda Hawksley, author of Lizzie Siddal: Face of the Pre-Raphaelites.
From the Highgate Cemetery website: This is a unique and historic occasion as it is in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Lizzie Siddal’s death: she died on February 11th 1862 and was buried at Highgate Cemetery six days later.
Lizzie Siddal was a nineteenth-century phenomenon: a working-class girl whose beauty made her the Pre-Raphaelite movement’s most celebrated, iconic face. Dante Rossetti, founder and leading light of the movement, painted and drew her obsessively a thousand times. She soon became a poet and artist in her own right.
However, as his lover and finally his wife, Lizzie’s relationship with Rossetti was blighted by his infidelities and neglect. In despair, Lizzie resorted to laudanum to numb her senses. In 1862 she took an overdose and left a suicide note.
Lucinda’s illustrated and vivid account of Lizzie’s meteoric but brief career and her tortured relationship breathes new life into the images of Lizzie frozen in time in galleries around the world.
The talk commences at 6.30 and will last around an hour. Booking: is in advance by email only at events@highgate-cemetery.org. Tickets: cost £10 each (£8 for students) including refreshments and nibbles. Space is limited so early booking is advised.
About Elizabeth Siddal
Elizabeth Siddal (July 25, 1829 – February 11, 1862)
While working in a millinery shop, Lizzie was discovered by the artist Walter Deverell who painted her as Viola in his depiction of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Lizzie went on to model for other Pre-Raphaelite artists and is most commonly recognized as Ophelia in the painting by John Everett Millais, but was the charismatic Dante Gabriel Rossetti who not only drew and painted her obsessively, but encouraged Lizzie in her own artwork and poetry. Their relationship was intense and rocky, with an engagement that lasted on and off for a decade. Sadly, their marriage was short. The couple suffered a stillborn child and Lizzie was seriously addicted to Laudanum. She died in 1862 due to an overdose. The rest of Lizzie’s tale is eerily famous for its gothic Victorian morbidity: Rossetti, in his grief, buried his only manuscript of his poems with Lizzie. The poems, nestled in her coffin amidst her famous red hair, haunted him. Seven years later, he had her coffin exhumed in order to retrieve the poems for publication. The story was spread that Lizzie was still in beautiful, pristine condition and that her flaming hair had continued to grow after death, filling the coffin. This, of course, is a biological impossibility. Cellular growth does not occur after death, but the tale has added to Lizzie’s legend and continues to capture the interest of Pre-Raphaelite and Lizzie Siddal enthusiasts.
The story of Lizzie’s life is punctuated with dramatic episodes such as falling ill as a result of modeling as Ophelia,, the tales of Rossetti’s dalliances, and her grief at the loss of their stillborn daughter. Our modern society is much more aware and educated than the Victorians regarding mental health issues. Unfortunately for Elizabeth Siddal, she lived in a time where addiction was a taboo subject and little was known about post-partum depression. Lizzie lived within a cycle of illness, addiction and grief with no resources available to her. And although she did have a creative outlet while most women were denied modes of self expression, Lizzie was never able to move beyond the addiction that claimed her life.
Source: website LizzieSiddal.com
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Galerie des Morts, Lizzy Siddal, Siddal, Lizzy
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