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| Peter Paul Rubens Sheet of Studies (Job's Wife, Judith and Holofernes) ca. 1595 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| John Singer Sargent Falling Figure ca. 1918-19 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| John Singer Sargent Figure Studies ca. 1903 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| David Scott Life Study of Model ca. 1840 oil on paper Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Adamo Scultori after Michelangelo Ignudo (Sistine Ceiling) ca. 1585 engraving Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Severo da Ravenna Neptune on a Sea Monster ca. 1500-1510 bronze National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Hans Speckaert Allegory of Minerva presiding over the Muses ca. 1575 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Bartholomeus Spranger after Jacopo Tintoretto Figure Studies ca. 1565-75 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Lorenz Stör Figure Study 1576 drawing Gemäldegalerie, Dresden |
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| George Stubbs Fowl - Head and Neck - Lateral View ca. 1795 drawing Yale Center for British Art |
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| Giambattista Tiepolo Study for The Martyrdom of St Sebastian 1739 oil on canvas Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| Feliks Topolski Production of Róžewicz's Funny Old Man at ICA Theatre, London 1977 drawing Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Giovanni Battista Trotti (il Molosso) Miracle of San Giacinto (detail) 1596 oil on canvas Museo Civico ala Ponzone, Cremona |
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| Anthony van Dyck Figure Study for Crucifixion ca. 1630 drawing Harvard Art Museums |
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| Raphael Lamar West Académie ca. 1790 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Hamlet Winstanley The Farnese Hercules (study of a cast) 1717 drawing Yale Center for British Art |
The End
All those who have not died have married.
A Pompeian pause arrests
Merton beside his window, and the view
Below is parkland, final as none
Could be, but the moment after she
Whose name is on the card he holds
Has gone. The sliver of pasteboard framed
A Pompeian pause arrests
Merton beside his window, and the view
Below is parkland, final as none
Could be, but the moment after she
Whose name is on the card he holds
Has gone. The sliver of pasteboard framed
By the great window, now, forever,
He is perfected in regret. Dalton
Hailing the cab that will carry him
Out of the book, the motif on his lips
(So much for London, then) for the last time,
The last chord chimes, tolling the solitudes
Of the vast mind they moved in.
Such ends are just. But let him know
Who reads his time by the way books go,
Each instant will bewry his symmetries
And Time, climbing down from its pedestal
Uncrown the settled vista of his loss.
Is it autumn or spring? It is autumn or spring.
Before door and window, the terrible guest
Towers towards a famine and a feast.
He is perfected in regret. Dalton
Hailing the cab that will carry him
Out of the book, the motif on his lips
(So much for London, then) for the last time,
The last chord chimes, tolling the solitudes
Of the vast mind they moved in.
Such ends are just. But let him know
Who reads his time by the way books go,
Each instant will bewry his symmetries
And Time, climbing down from its pedestal
Uncrown the settled vista of his loss.
Is it autumn or spring? It is autumn or spring.
Before door and window, the terrible guest
Towers towards a famine and a feast.
– Charles Tomlinson (1967)