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The Lion of Chaeronea

@lionofchaeronea / lionofchaeronea.tumblr.com

A blog dedicated to classical antiquity, poetry, and the visual arts. All translations of Greek and Latin are my own unless otherwise noted.
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"Long Barren" -- Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Thou who didst hang upon a barren tree, My God, for me; Tho' I till now be barren, now at length, Lord, give me strength To bring forth fruit to Thee. Thou who didst bear for me the crown of thorn, Spitting and scorn; Tho' I till now have put forth thorns, yet now Strengthen me Thou That better fruit be borne. Thou Rose of Sharon, Cedar of broad roots, Vine of sweet fruits, Thou Lily of the vale with fadeless leaf, Of thousands Chief, Feed Thou my feeble shoots.

The Meditation on the Passion, Vittore Carpaccio, ca. 1490

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"Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel" (from "Idylls of the King: The Marriage of Geraint"), Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up nor down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands; For man is man and master of his fate. Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd; Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

Allegory of Fortune, Salvator Rosa, ca. 1658-59

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“Spring” - Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—  When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;  Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;  The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush  The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. What is all this juice and all this joy?  A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,  Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning, Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,  Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Early Spring, Ernest Lawson, 1918

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“The Splendor Falls” - Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

The splendor falls on castle walls    And snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes,    And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear,    And thinner, clearer, farther going! O, sweet and far from cliff and scar    The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying, Blow, bugles; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,    They faint on hill or field or river; Our echoes roll from soul to soul,    And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Alnwick Castle, J.M.W. Turner, ca. 1829

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“Moonrise” - Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning: The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle, Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless, Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain; A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quit utterly. This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily, Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber.

Evening Scene with Full Moon and Persons, Abraham Pether, 1801

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“The Starlight Night” - Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!   O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!   The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there! Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes! The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!   Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!   Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare! Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize. Buy then! bid then! — What? — Prayer, patience, alms, vows. Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!   Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows! These are indeed the barn; withindoors house The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse   Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

Landscape with Stars, Henri-Edmond Cross, ca. 1905-08

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“Symphony in Yellow” - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

An omnibus across the bridge Crawls like a yellow butterfly, And, here and there, a passer-by Shows like a little restless midge. Big barges full of yellow hay Are moored against the shadowy wharf, And, like a yellow silken scarf, The thick fog hangs along the quay. The yellow leaves begin to fade And flutter from the Temple elms, And at my feet the pale green Thames Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

The Thames at Westminster, Claude Monet, 1871

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“Art” - James Thomson (1834-1882)

What precious thing are you making fast In all these silken lines? And where and to whom will it go at last? Such subtle knots and twines! I am tying up all my love in this, With all its hopes and fears, With all its anguish and its bliss, And its hours as heavy as years. I am going to send it afar, afar, To I know not where above; To that sphere beyond the highest star Where dwells the soul of my Love. But in vain, in vain, would I make it fast With countless subtle twines: For ever its fire breaks out at last, And shrivels all the lines.

The Evening Star, Edward Burne-Jones, 1870

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“Sonnets from the Portuguese” XXXV (”If I leave all for thee”) - Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors ... another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change? That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried, To conquer grief, tries more ... as all things prove; For grief indeed is love and grief beside. Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thine heart wide, And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

The Wounded Dove, Rebecca Solomon, 1866

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“Parting at Morning” - Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me. 

Morning, Edvard Munch, 1884

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“Child’s Song” - Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

What is gold worth, say, Worth for work or play, Worth to keep or pay, Hide or throw away,     Hope about or fear?          What is love worth, pray?     Worth a tear? Golden on the mould Lie the dead leaves roll’d Of the wet woods old,          Yellow leaves and cold,     Woods without a dove; Gold is worth but gold;     Love ’s worth love.

Autumn Leaves, Ellen Robbins, 1870

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“Flower in the Crannied Wall” - Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower—but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.

Lotus Flowers with a Landscape Painting in the Background, Martin Johnson Heade, between 1885 and 1900

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“Spring” - Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –           When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;       Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush          The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush        With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.        

What is all this juice and all this joy?           A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,           Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,           Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Early Spring - Bluebonnets and Mesquite, Julian Onderdonk, 1919

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“Break, Break, Break” - Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Break, break, break,         On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter         The thoughts that arise in me. O, well for the fisherman's boy,         That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad,         That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on         To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,         And the sound of a voice that is still! Break, break, break         At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead         Will never come back to me.

The North Sea in Stormy Weather. After Sunset. Højen, Laurits Tuxen, 1909  

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“Summer Dawn” - William Morris (1834-1896)

Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,  Think but one thought of me up in the stars. The summer night waneth, the morning light slips  Faint and gray 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars, That are patiently waiting there for the dawn:          Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold Waits to float through them along with the sun. Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,  The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;   Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn Round the lone house in the midst of the corn.    Speak but one word to me over the corn,    Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn.

Dawn in the Hills, Julian Onderdonk, 1922

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“On Wenlock Edge” (no. 31 from “A Shropshire Lad”) - A.E. Housman (1859-1936)

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;      His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves; The gale, it plies the saplings double,      And thick on Severn snow the leaves. 'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger      When Uricon the city stood: 'Tis the old wind in the old anger,      But then it threshed another wood. Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman      At yonder heaving hill would stare: The blood that warms an English yeoman,      The thoughts that hurt him, they were there. There, like the wind through woods in riot,      Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet:      Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I. The gale, it plies the saplings double,      It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone: To-day the Roman and his trouble      Are ashes under Uricon.

Pathway in a Forest, Camille Pissarro, 1859

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“Memorabilia” - Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you? And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems, and new! But you were living before that, And you are living after, And the memory I started at— My starting moves your laughter! I crossed a moor, with a name of its own And a certain use in the world no doubt, Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 'Mid the blank miles round about: For there I picked up on the heather And there I put inside my breast A moulted feather, an eagle-feather— Well, I forget the rest.

View from Kersal Moor, Salford, Sebastian Pether, 1820

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