Poem of the month: Maiden in the Mor Lay.

Maiden in the mor lay -

In the mor lay -

Seuenyst fulle, seuenyst fulle,

Maiden in the mor lay -

In the mor lay -

Seuenistes fulle ant a day.

Welle was hire mete.

Wat was hire mete?

Þe primerole ant the, þe primerole ant the,

Welle was hire mete.

Wat was hire mete?

Þe primerole ant the violet.

Welle was hire dryng.

Wat was hire dryng?

Þe chelde water of þe, þe chelde water of þe,

Welle was hire dryng.

Wat was hire dryng?

Þe chelde water of þe welle-spring.

Welle was hire bour.

Wat was hire bour?

Þe rede rose ant the, þe rede rose ant the,

Welle was hire bour.

Wat was hire bour?

Þe rede rose ant the lilie flour.

~ A Medieval song by an anonymous composer.

You can listen to a lovely version of this song here - our choir's currently working on this song too and I'm loving every moment of it!

Poem of the month: The Frivolous Cake

The Frivolous Cake 

A freckled and frivolous cake there was 

That sailed upon a pointless sea, 

Or any lugubrious lake there was 

In a manner emphatic and free. 

How jointlessly, and how jointlessly 

The frivolous cake sailed by 

On the waves of the ocean that pointlessly 

Threw fish to the lilac sky. 

Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was 

Of a glory beyond compare, 

And every conceivable make there was 

Was tossed through the lilac air. 

Up the smooth billows and over the crests 

Of the cumbersome combers flew 

The frivolous cake with a knife in the wake 

Of herself and her curranty crew. 

Like a swordfish grim it would bounce and skim 

(This dinner knife fierce and blue), 

And the frivolous cake was filled to the brim 

With the fun of her curranty crew. 

Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was 

Of a glory beyond compare - 

And every conceivable make there was 

Was tossed through the lilac air. 

Around the shores of the Elegant Isles 

Where the cat-fish bask and purr 

And lick their paws with adhesive smiles 

And wriggle their fins of fur, 

They fly and fly 'neath the lilac sky - 

The frivolous cake, and the knife 

Who winketh his glamorous indigo eye 

In the wake of his future wife. 

The crumbs blow free down the pointless sea 

To the beat of a cakey heart 

And the sensitive steel of the knife can feel 

That love is a race apart 

In the speed of the lingering light are blown 

The crumbs to the hake above, 

And the tropical air vibrates to the drone 

Of a cake in the throes of love.

~Mervyn Peake

Poem of the month: The Journey

The Journey

Anghiari is medieval, a sleeve sloping down 

A steep hill, suddenly sweeping out 

To the edge of a cliff, and dwindling. 

But far up the mountain, behind the town, 

We too were swept out, out by the wind, 

Alone with the Tuscan grass. 

Wind had been blowing across the hills 

For days, and everything now was graying gold 

With dust, everything we saw, even 

Some small children scampering along a road, 

Twittering Italian to a small caged bird. 

We sat beside them to rest in some brushwood, 

And I leaned down to rinse the dust from my face. 

I found the spider web there, whose hinges 

Reeled heavily and crazily with the dust, 

Whole mounds and cemeteries of it, sagging 

And scattering shadows among shells and wings. 

And then she stepped into the center of air 

Slender and fastidious, the golden hair 

Of daylight along her shoulders, she poised there, 

While ruins crumbled on every side of her. 

Free of the dust, as though a moment before 

She had stepped inside the earth, to bathe herself. 

I gazed, close to her, till at last she stepped 

Away in her own good time. 

Many men 

Have searched all over Tuscany and never found 

What I found there, the heart of the light 

Itself shelled and leaved, balancing 

On filaments themselves falling. The secret 

Of this journey is to let the wind 

Blow its dust all over your body, 

To let it go on blowing, to step lightly, lightly 

All the way through your ruins, and not to lose 

Any sleep over the dead, who surely 

Will bury their own, don't worry.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Autumn Day.

AUTUMN DAY

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.

Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,

and on the meadows let the wind go free.  

Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;

grant them a few more warm transparent days,

urge them on to fulfillment then, and press

the final sweetness into the heavy wine.  

Whoever has no house now, will never have one.

Whoever is alone will stay alone,

will sit, read, write long letters through the evening,

and wander along the boulevards, up and down,

restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

 - Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Stephen Mitchell

Jodelling Song.

Jodelling Song

"We bear velvet cream.

Green and babyish

Small leaves seem; each stream

Horses' tails that swish,

And the chimes remind

Us of sweet birds singing,

Like the Jangling bells,

On rose trees ringing.

Man must say farewells

To parents now,

And to William Tell

And to Mrs Cow.

Man must say farewells

To storks and Bettes,

And to roses, 'bells,

And statuettes,

Forests white and black

In spring are blue

With forget-me-nots,

And to lovers true,

Still the sweet bird begs

And tries to cozen

Them:   -- Buy angels' eggs

Sold by the dozen. --

Gone are clouds like inns

On the gardens' brinks,

And the mountain djinns,-

Ganymede sells drinks;

While the days seem grey,

And his heart of ice,

Grey as chamois, or

The edelweiss,

And the mountain streams

Like cowbells sound-

Tirra lirra, drowned

In the waiter's dreams

Who has gone beyond

The forest waves,

While his true and fond

Ones seek their graves."

~Poem by Edith Sitwell, art by Patrick Woodroffe

Happy Juhannus!

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends

And before the street begins,

And there the grass grows soft and white,

And there the sun burns crimson bright,

And there the moon-bird rests from his flight

To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black

And the dark street winds and bends.

Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow

We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And watch where the chalk-white arrows go

To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,

For the children, they mark, and the children, they know

The place where the sidewalk ends.

9 things I like.

Inspired by a blog entry on Zeruda's Wonderland (a blog that's so lovely you all lolis really ought to go see if you haven't seen it already, trust me), I decided to turn this idea into a meme for my personal amusement: rules are pretty much the same as in the lolita-meme because I already know I'm incapable of making a nice and tidy post for all nine. So here goes, in no order of importance:

#1. The mystery of flight, IOW flying machines and the kind.

From top to bottom and left to right: first is a drawing of Mme Sophie Blanchard's hydrogen balloons. She was the first professional female aeronaut and as such a great inspiration to me. I admit, though, that it's her dedication and fearlessness that get to me more than her gender: apparently she was quite a timid, easily startled mousey woman outside of her aircraft, but once in it she became quite a daredevil, masterful enough to earn the title of "Official Aeronaut of the Restoration". She cheated death time and time again.

Until the second picture, of course. She eventually did manage to die in a balloon accident (this making her also the first woman ever to die in an aviation accident) after surviving near drowning in a marsh and a couple of  unconscious moments in altitudes that froze her fingers, not to mention all those times when she set off fireworks from her balloon that, as mentioned, was full of hydrogen...

The third picture is by Patrick Woodroffe again, and along comes one of the cutest poems I know of:

The Mystery of Flight

"Did you know",

Said the crow,

"That a condor can go

With never a flap of his wing?"

"But the moon,"

Said the fly,

"Can remain in the sky

With nary a flap of a thing."

"How, rather than fall,

Can you stay up at all

Is a puzzle to me."

Said the flea.

~Patrick Woodroffe

On the next row is a photo of the insides of Hindenburg and a nameless glider I once found somewhere on the internets. And finally a fail!gif of a hover lolita, all and any resemblance to me is naturally coincidental and I won't admit anything.

Alicia, Sarah and the Bailiff.

Under an oak like a passion parade,
Delicious Alicia and Sarah would wade
Up to their thighs in the bubbling brook,
One gathering flowers, one reading a book.

Alicia´s delice were her eyes made of jade,
And Sarah´s hair fluttered like spilt orangeade:
Their blouses were gaped by a curious breeze,
And not knowing they did it, the temptresses teased

A bailiff in gaiters who sat on a stile
Watching them bathe with a covetous smile.
As they rounded a corner he thrust out his chin,
Leaned out from his perch on the stile and fell in.

When his face struck the water he cried out in fear,
Till the girls of his dreams nursed him over the weir.
The book was neglected, the flowers denied
As the girls and the bailiff did sport in the tide.

And there on a beach where the driftwood doth pile,
From where he had fallen full many a mile,
The face on the corpse bore the trace of a smile,
That´s the tale of the mermaid - country-style.


Image and poem by Patrick Woodroffe 

Summer Rain.

A break in the heat

away from the front

no thunder, no lightning,

just rain, warm rain

falling near dusk

falling on eager ground

steaming blacktop

hungry plants

thirsty

turning toward the clouds

cooling, soothing rain

splashing in sudden puddles

catching in open screens

that certain smell

of summer rain

August 4, 2006 8:35

edited 10:57

~Raymond A. Foss

Valse.

Valse

Daisy and Lily,
Lazy and silly,
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea,-
Talking once more 'neath a swan-
bosomed tree.
Rose castles
Tourelles
Those bustles
Where swells
Each foam-bell of ermine
They roam and determine
What fashions have been and what
fashions will be,-
What tartan leaves born,
What Crinolines worn.

By Queen Thetis,
Pelisses
Of tarlatine blue,
Like the thin Plaided leaves that the
Castle crags grew,
Or velours d'Afrande:
On the water-god's land
Her hair seemed gold trees on the
honey-cell sand
When the thickest gold spangles,
on deep water seen,
Were like twanging guitar and like
cold mandoline,
And the nymphs of great caves,
With hair like gold waves,
Of Venus, wore tarlatine
Louise and Charlottine
(Borea's daughters)
And the nymphs of deep waters,
The nymph Taglioni, Grisi the ondine
Wear Plaided Victoria and thin
Clementine
Like the crinolined waterfalls;
Wood-nymphs wear bonnets,
shawls,
Elegant parasols
Floating are seen.
The Amazones wear balzarine of
jonquille

Besides the blond lace of a deep-
falling rill;
Through glades like a nun
They run from and shun
The enormous and gold-rayed
rustling sun;
And the nymphs of the fountains
Descend from the mountains
Like elegant willows
On their deep barouche pillows,
In cashmere Alvandar, barege Isabelle
Like bells of bright water from
clearest wood-well.
Our elegantes favouring
bonnets of blond,
The stars in their apiaries,
Sylphs in their aviaries,
Seeing them, spangle these,
and the sylphs fond
From their aviaries fanned
With each long fluid hand
The manteaux espagnoles,
Mimic the waterfalls
Over the long and the light summer land.
...
So Daisy and Lily,
Lazy and silly
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy Sea,
Talking once more 'neath a swan-
bosomed tree.
Row Castles,
Tourelles,
Those bustles!
Mourelles
Of their shade in their train follow.
Ladies, how vain, - hollow, -
Gone is the sweet swallow, -
Gone, Philomel!"


~Edith Sitwell

Art by Patrick Woodroffe.

15. Current obsession?

Click bigger to view the Frumious Bandersnatch.

I'm sorry, this is perhaps not strictly lolita-related but I figured it could still apply: at the moment my obsessions would be nonsense poetry and art by Patrick Woodroffe. This is nothing new however: I've been a fan of Woodroffe's since 1998 when I first found an artbook by him in our tiny local library and nonsense poetry, well, it grows on you if you like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The Coastal Path.

Death of the Air.

This piece comes from Mythopoeikon, a story of a world that perhaps was once somewhere, with a God who slept too much and was absent-minded enough to let one of his creations go mad enough to undo all his work. Before you make assumptions, the creature mentioned was not human - although they inhabited the world as well - but rather someone of higher birth, whose one goal was to destroy humanity to the last member.

This picture was used to illustrate the artbook I mentioned, Hallelujah Anyway!, but sadly I cannot remember the name of the piece of art itself.

From the same book. The pic above and this one are actually both photographs!

The Elven Drummer.

I CANNOT GIVE THE REASONS

I cannot give the reasons,

I only sing the tunes:

the sadness of the seasons

the madness of the moons.

I cannot be didactic

or lucid, but I can

be quite obscure and practic-

ally marzipan.

In gorgery and gushness

and all that's squishified.

My voice has all the lushness

of what I can't abide.

And yet it has a beauty

most proud and terrible

denied to those whose duty

is to be cerebral.

Among the antlered mountains

I make my viscous way

and watch the sepia fountains

throw up their lime-green spray.

~Mervyn Peake