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| attributed to Antonio Balestra Music-making Angels on clouds before 1740 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Antonio Balestra Design for Title-page before 1740 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Antonio Balestra Self-portrait (presumed) ca. 1695 drawing Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| attributed to Jan Both Italian landscape with squat round structure before 1652 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Jan Both Landscape with wood-gatherer before 1652 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Guercino Sleeping Rinaldo abducted by Armida (study for ceiling of Palazzo Costaguti, Rome) before 1623 drawing Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
The Sleeper
As Ann came in one summer's day,
She felt that she must creep,
So silent was the clear cool house,
It seemed a house of sleep.
And sure, when she pushed open the door,
Rapt in the stillness there,
Her mother sat, with stooping head,
Asleep upon a chair;
Fast – fast asleep; her two hands laid
Loose-folded on her knee,
So that her small unconscious face
Looked half unreal to be:
So calmly lit with sleep's pale light
Each feature was; so fair
Her forehead – every trouble was
Smoothed out beneath her hair.
But though her mind in dream now moved,
Still seemed her gaze to rest –
From out beneath her fast-sealed lids,
Above her moving breast –
On Ann; as quite, quite still she stood;
Yet slumber lay so deep
Even her hands upon her lap
Seemed saturate with sleep.
And as Ann peeped, a cloudlike dread
Stole over her, and then,
On stealthy, mouselike feet she trod,
And tiptoed out again.
– Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)
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| Guercino St Veronica showing the Vernicle to St Peter before 1666 drawing Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Guercino Christ at Emmaus before 1666 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Gerard ter Borch the Elder Woman wearing veil with houpette ca. 1615-29 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Harmen ter Borch Interior with woman bending over a chest ca. 1651 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
from Searching for Signs
I am searching now for signs and wonders
which, when younger, I might have had
for nothing, nothing at all, but which,
when older, I threw, despised, in the street –
things of little value, spurned by the stupid.
What were these things? The works that
embody and in their time transform
all poets destined for great singing
when, in their maturity, they pick up the pearl
lodged and nourished in the treasure of their heart.
But, for me, cursed with sloth
there will be no art
no enamelled bird, no cup, no forge.
When, in my youth, I heard the clamour
Of the mob and was afraid, I turned and ran
and since that time am unmanned.
Oh, I did not betray a gift, an artifact
but only what was me and mine.
Instead of winding the golden thread
up in a ball and following
until the tall trees and blood-red fruit
screamed Paradise I examined and searched
pretending I needed more: "I need more time,"
I said.
– Alan Brilliant (1969)
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| Hendrick van Cleve Landscape with obelisk among ruins 1584 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Hendrick van Cleve Landscape with obelisk among ruins 1587 engraving after van Cleve by Adriaen Collaert Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Hendrick van Cleve Landscape with ruins by a river 1584 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Hendrick van Cleve Landscape with ruins by a river 1587 engraving after van Cleve by Adriaen Collaert Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)