The thrill of it all

Memory

One had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.

“In rapture, she found her greatest pleasure in the thrill of anticipation”, 40” x 30”, Acrylic on canvas

Her Praise

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I have gone about the house, gone up and down
As a man does who has published a new book,
Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,
And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook
Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,
A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,
A man confusedly in a half dream
As though some other name ran in his head.
She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.
If there be rags enough he will know her name
And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,
Though she had young men’s praise and old men’s blame,
Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

Text of both poems by WB Yeats from the selection by Seamus Heaney, published by Faber (2000).

From the Bestiary

“The knife hand was singing”, 24” x 24”, Acrylic on canvas

Another painting from the series I’ve been working on (see previous post), painted on 20th August this year. As it seems like a good idea and because I like the poem, here’s another by my old duffer ‘Bill’, or, WB Yeats:

The Magi

Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

Again, the text comes from the Faber selection chosen by Seamus Heaney (2000).

The Second Coming?

“what rough beast”, 33” x 33”, Acrylic on canvas

This is another painting, completed on 14th August, from the series I've been working on for some time now. It is based on imagery from one of my favourite poems:

“The Second Coming”, WB Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The text of the poem is from the Faber edition of poems selected by Seamus Heaney (2000).


I think that most people who read the poem get themselves in entangled in the imagery that could come straight out of The Book of Revelations of St John of the Cross or from a horror story by HP Lovecraft but they are missing the content. 'Shadows of the indignant birds...', surely, these are vultures or some sort of carrion eating bird, disgruntled because there is no death. For me, the poem is about signs and portents, awaiting a struggle that does not come because in the Christian canon it is expected that Jesus' return will be a glorious thing full of rapture and wonder and the fear of sinners but what could be more disappointing than some sort of rough beast that lacks delicacy and grace? A clumsy baby that needs it's mother's arms to hold it upright. How disappointing for the priests that they would have to change a nappy! And so... a quieter image recalling the 'Madonna and child' pictures of the Renaissance, an image that shows the darkness of the world around a mother and her baby.