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| Michael Ancher Lifeboat taken through the Dunes 1883 oil on canvas Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
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| Michael Ancher The Drowned Fisherman 1896 oil on canvas Skagens Museum, Denmark |
MIDWINTER
A blue light
streams out of my clothes.
Midwinter.
Ringing tambourines of ice.
I close my eyes.
There is a silent world,
there is a crack
where the dead
are smuggled over the border.
РTomas Transtr̦mer, translated by Robin Robertson
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| Ford Madox Brown Finding of Don Juan by Haidee 1873 oil on panel Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery |
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| Frederic Leighton The Feigned Death of Juliet ca. 1856-58 oil on canvas Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
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| John Everett Millais The Northwest Passage 1874 oil on canvas Tate Britain |
"The further we went on (our victuall decreasing and the aire breeding great faintnesse) wee grew weaker and weaker, when wee had most need of strength and abilitie; for hourly the river ranne more violently then ever against us, the barge, wheries, and shippes boat of captaine Gifford and captaine Calfield, had spent all their provisions; so as we were brought into despaire and discomfort, had wee not perswaded all the company that it was but onely one dayes worke more to atteine the land where wee should be relieved of all wee wanted, and if we returned, that wee were sure to starve by the way, and that the world would also laugh us to scorne."
– from The English Voyages (1589) by Richard Hakluyt
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| Edward Poynter Helena and Hermia 1901 oil on canvas Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
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| Lawrence Alma-Tadema A Reading from Homer 1885 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Albert Joseph Moore A Musician ca. 1867 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
ODE TO APHRODITE
Glittering-throned undying Aphrodite,
Wile-weaving daughter of high Zeus, I pray thee
Tame not my soul with heavy woe, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish,
But hither come, if ever erst of old time
Thou didst incline, and listendedst to my crying,
And from thy father's palace down descending
Camest with golden
Chariot yoked: thee fair swift flying sparrows
Over dark earth with multitudinous fluttering,
Pinion on pinion through middle ether
Down from heaven hurried.
Quickly they came like light, and thou, blest lady,
Smiling with clear undying eyes, didst ask me
What was the woe that troubled me, and wherefore
I had cried to thee;
What thing I longed for to appease my frantic
Soul: and Whom now must I persuade, thou askedst,
Whom must entangle to thy love, and who now,
Sappho, hath wronged thee.
Yea, for if now he shun, he soon shall chase thee;
Yea, if he take not gifts, he soon shall give them;
Yea, if he loved not soon, shall he begin to
Love thee, unwilling.
Come to me now too, and from tyrannous sorrow
Free me, and all things that my soul desires to
Have done, do for me Queen, and let thyself too
Be my great ally.
– written by Sappho in Greek, translated by John Addington Symonds (1840-1893)
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| Alfred Elmore Pompeii - AD 79 1878 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Laboratory 1849 watercolor Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery |
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| James Tissot Women of Paris - The Circus-Lover 1885 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| attributed to Alfred Stevens Elegant Figures in a Salon ca. 1870-80 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
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| Augustus Egg The Life of Buckingham ca. 1855 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Augustus Egg The Death of Buckingham ca. 1855 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
DIRGE
Call for the Robin-Red-brest and the wren,
Since ore shadie groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowres doe cover
The friendlesse bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funerall Dole
The Ante, the field-mouse, and the mole
To reare him hillockes, that shall keep him warme,
And (when gay tombes are rob'd) sustaine no harme,
But keep the wolfe far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nailes hee'l dig them up again.
– from The White Devil (1612) by John Webster