Alan Moore on Austin Osman Spare

Quite interesting, this. Alan Moore is pretty much responsible for revitalizing comics/graphic novels as an art form.

Sir Kay Breaketh His Sword at ye Tournament - Howard Pyle

Howard Pyle was one of the great lights of the Golden Age of illustration. Along with his pupil, the magnificent N.C. Wyeth, he is among the greatest of American illustrators. The above is from his book, The Story of King Arthur and his Knights.

He Beholds the Beloved: Sonnet 4

This is the fourth sonnet in a sequence which begins with "The Faerie Lover". (The painting is by Sir Edward Burne-Jones)

He Beholds the Beloved

A river murm'ring through a wooded vale
Is like your beauty: from a thousand springs
And freshets of pure silver - rill on rill -
Accumulates a flood of glitterings

Which daze the subtle senses. Womanly
In intellect, in warmth, in form, in voice,
In motion, in repose - essentially -
You flow in beauty's streaming, bright embrace;

Yet secretly, as if the breathless trees
In verdure veiled from senses unrefined
Reflection of your liquid loveliness;
The thousand fluid charms in you aligned.

Grant this one favor may to me be shown:
Let me but lean to taste your mouth, and drown.

-by Wayward Disciple

Her Determination: Sonnet 3

This is the third sonnet in a sequence beginning with "The Faerie Lover", and continuing with "The Beloved's Confusion", which can be found among previous posts. The painting is by J.W. Waterhouse.


Her Determination

Were I content to love thee from afar,
I would not wait beneath this linden tree
Night after night, in hopes that I might see
Thee passing 'twixt thy dwelling and thy car.

I will not feed upon my heart's remains,
Peering disconsolate into thy world.
Tools have I gathered, ancient scrolls unfurled
Of power to shake the lintels of the planes!

Thy meadows I behold; ye see not mine,
Their azure lilies surging in the wind.
That will I alter after my design,
Glyphs of enchantment tracing in thy mind.

Drowned in the midnight river of my hair,
Thou shalt behold my beauty and despair.

- by Wayward Disciple