Please note that the poems and essays on this site are copyright and may not be reproduced without the author's permission.


Saturday 24 December 2011

Windows ("That time of year you may in me behold")

.

Boy beside store window display of Christmas ornaments: photographer unknown, December 1941



Delmore Schwartz: The Winter Twilight, Glowing Black and Gold



That time of year you may in me behold
When Christmas trees are blazing on the walk,
Raging amid stale snow against the cold
And low sky's bundled wash, senseless as chalk.
Hissing and ravenous the brilliant plant,
Rising like eagerness, a rushing pyre
(As when the tutti bursts forth, and the chant
Soars up -- hurrahing! -- from the Easter choir).

But this is only true at four o'clock,
At noon the fifth year is once more abused,
I bring a distant girl apples and cake,
Pictures, secrets, lastly my swollen heart,
Now boxed and tied by what I know of art
-- But as before accepted and refused.



Delmore Schwartz: The Winter Twilight, Glowing Black and Gold, from Vaudeville for a Princess and Other Poems, 1950





http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/fsac/1a34000/1a34400/1a34414v.jpg

Boys looking at store window display of toys
: photographer unknown
, December 1941



William Shakespeare: Sonnet 73: That time of yeeare thou maiſt in me behold




http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/Sonnets/e4r.jpg

William Shakespeare: Sonnet 73 (1609 quarto, facsimile)




That time of yeeare thou maiſt in me behold,
When yellow leaues, or none, or fewe doe hange
Vpon thoſe boughes which ſhake againſt the could,
Bare rn'wd quiers,where late the ſweet birds ſang.
In me thou ſeeſt the twi-light of ſuch day,
As after Sun-ſet fadeth in the Weſt,
Which by and by blacke night doth take away,
Deaths ſecond ſelfe that ſeals vp all in reſt.
In me thou ſeeſt the glowing of ſuch fire,
That on the aſhes of his youth doth lye,
As the death bed, whereon it muſt expire,
Conſum'd with that which it was nurriſht by.
This thou perceu'ſt, which makes thy loue more ſtrong,
To loue that well, which thou muſt leaue ere long.



William Shakespeare: Sonnet 73: That time of yeeare thou maiſt in me behold, from 1609 Quarto




http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/fsac/1a34000/1a34400/1a34409v.jpg

Christmas trees and wreaths in store window display, photographer unknown, December 1941


Photos from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

2 comments:

TC said...

I've a strong hunch it was Jack Delano took these pictures, but as they've been lost in the cracks in the archive corridors, and attributed to Nobody, I'll just have to stick with that most noble of anonymous authors.

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

thanks for this and yes, "where late the sweet birds sang" --

12.24

light coming into sky above black plane
of ridge, silver of planet above branch
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

can see also birds, picture
most abstract version

not only more but also, why
and in what way, here

orange edge of sun rising above ridge,
cloud in pale blue sky on the horizon