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| Bernard Lens the younger Portrait miniature of unknown woman before 1740 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Bernard Lens the younger Portrait miniature of unknown woman before 1740 pigment on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Gervase Spencer Portrait miniature of unknown woman 1749 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
Little
aren't we all lifelike?
Those are the thuds of thunder
at the back of our bones
aren't we all moonlike?
Those are the buds of thunder
by our glassified gravestones
aren't we all ready
for those last moonlike promises?
aren't we all being a little talkative as yet?
for those buds of thunder
at the back of our moonlike bones
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| George Engleheart Miss Anna Seton ca. 1770 pigment on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| James Scouler Unknown woman as a Sybil 1772 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| James Scouler Unknown woman as the goddess Diana 1773 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Samuel Shelley Miss Anne Newman, aged 11 1781 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
Pursuit Upon Happiness
Oh mad pursuit upon happiness
And when the day is ended – and there is none
Thy dreams are on fire in the searching sunsets
That have burned upon the sands of thine own kinds of times
Thy youth was full of glass charms, of daydreams
Upon cases, One's heart is overflowing of fair faith
One's midday cactus bloom in under the scorching sun
One's midday pursuit after happiness, and what elderly years
Are last few leaves are on fire in the scorching sunsets
Although unhappily before thy trek is done
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| Richard Crosse Mrs Siddons 1783 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Nathaniel Pilmer Mrs William Vallance of Sittingbourne 1788 pigment on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| François Dumont Mlle. Anne Françoise Hippolyte Mars on stage ca. 1798 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
Dark Angel
Tomorrow night I walked to a dark black star
That I can have uncovered the face of the moon
Today and tonight I walked to a seventh noon star in heaven
That I opened the face of heaven, that I counted the dark chimes
I walked along the pathway of a black butterfly
I entered the forest of dark bewilderment
Either the other half of the black star that blinds the moon
Was lifted to the moon on either wing of the noon butterfly
That is a dark angel during the spool of black thread
That unwinds the moon that pulls the wheels of time
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| Samuel John Stump Portrait miniature of unknown woman ca. 1800-1825 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Maxime Gauci Princess Charlotte 1810 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Emma Leanora Kendrick Lady Caroline Lamb ca. 1815-20 watercolor on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Christina Robertson Miniature Self-portrait ca. 1822 pigment on ivory Victoria & Albert Museum |
– poems are from A Dark Dreambox of Another Kind: the Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton (Brooklyn : The Song Cave, 2013)