Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy and Paul Verlaine

I think that it is almost impossible not to be moved when listening to this song and I will always listen to it from time to time. Debussy did it to express Verlaine's poem:

Clair de lune Votre âme est un paysage choisi Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques. Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune, Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune, Au calme clair de lune triste et beau, Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau, Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres. From Fêtes galantes (1869)

Moonlight Your soul is like a landscape fantasy, Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise, Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise. Singing in minor mode of life's largesse And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite Reluctant to believe their happiness, And their song mingles with the pale moonlight, The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming, Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees, And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming-- Slender jet-fountains--sob their ecstasies.

When an artist can touch many people it's like s/he was capable of expressing one aspect of human condition.

(Click at the video for one second to "see" each note of the music.)

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Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe "portrayed" by Whistler

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

The picture is a pastel by Whistler done in 1890 for one of the most famous of Poe's poem Annabel Lee.

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Henry Miller: a good companion when one is having a Season in Hell

I have to stop using the computer for some days because of back problems so I will share with you what I'm rereading by Henry Miller.
No, not one of the "Tropics".
It is a 163 pages book he wrote about Rimbaud:
"Henry Miller's The Time of the Assassins : A Study of Rimbaud (1949 New Directions Publishing, 163 pp).

It is not a critical essay and it has more to due with an autobiography and his moral and intellectual legacy.
He makes some approximations between artists and dedicates a long part comparing Rimbaud and Van Gogh's lives taking into consideration not the craziness but a circumstance that few biographies remember, especially about Van Gogh ,: the poverty both lived and the impact it had on their way of being in the world.

I'm having a good time rereading it and finding some thoughts that although written sixty-one years ago reflect the same problems of today.

I hope I can update the blog. If not I will try to publish some excerpts I like:

"Rimbaud restored literature to life, I have endeavored to restore life to literature. In both of us the confessional quality is strong, the moral and spiritual preoccupation uppermost."

"I think there are many Rimbauds in this world and that their number will increase with time. I think the Rimbaud type will displace, in the world to come, the Hamlet type and the Faustian type. The trend is toward a deeper split. Until the Until the old world dies out utterly, the "abnormal" individual will tend more and more to become the norm. The new man will find himself only when thewarfare between the collectivity and the individual ceases. Then we shall see the human type in its fullness and splendor."
To get the full import of Rimbaud's Season in Hell, which lasted eighteen years, one has to read..."
Henry Miller

And this is Rimbaud:

"I invented the colors of the vowels!- A black, I red, O blue, U green- I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses."
-Une Saison en Enfer, "Délires II: Alchimie du Verbe"

A black, I red, O blue, U green
Image: Preface of the book picture taken By Joe Camel published at Flickr

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William Blake - "The Lamb" - Have a great December!

The poem The Tyger, post below, is more famous than The Lamb. I did choose The Lamb, from "Songs of Innocence", as a way to bless us all in this December.
Have a peaceful last month of the year.

THE LAMB
by William Blake

Little Lamb, who make thee
Dost thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, wolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee;
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

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