tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post9158086382279741545..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: James Schuyler: Horse-Chestnut Trees and RosesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-41432780233480404452010-06-07T18:12:46.621-07:002010-06-07T18:12:46.621-07:00Zeph, wonderful sundial inscription. And high time...Zeph, wonderful sundial inscription. And high time for it! Thanks too for reminding us of Handel's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB83z9_Clrk&feature=related" rel="nofollow">Lascia la spina</a> from Il Trionfo del Tempo. (This is not the Hallenberg but the Bartoli, which comes with a rich rose gallery.)<br /><br />And too bad about Ghislaine, another rose-coloured dream dashed alas...TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-38933227408799180742010-06-07T14:19:06.312-07:002010-06-07T14:19:06.312-07:00re: 'gather ye rosebuds' and similar, Rons...re: 'gather ye rosebuds' and similar, Ronsard does it pretty well:<br /><i>Vivez, si m’en croyez, n’attendez à demain :<br />Cueillez dès aujourd’hui les roses de la vie.</i><br />the last line of which I shall one day, when I'm rich, have engraved on a sundial in my rose garden.Zephirinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02809525772159756122noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-87991303137214662862010-06-07T14:07:20.645-07:002010-06-07T14:07:20.645-07:00Nowadays being a minor film star seems to be the r...Nowadays being a minor film star seems to be the rule, that or a Worthy Cause - we have lots of new roses named as tie-ins with charities. Of course there are big film star roses too, Ingrid Bergman is particularly fine. But in the 19th century I think they were mostly named after wealthy patrons of the rose breeder.<br /><br />I thought Ghislaine was a WWI heroine but it seems not: <a href="http://rosarosam.blogspot.com/2009/08/ghislaine-de-feligonde-end-of-myth.html" rel="nofollow">it's a myth</a>. Sigh.Zephirinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02809525772159756122noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-9921932631149224022010-06-07T09:26:15.827-07:002010-06-07T09:26:15.827-07:00Steve,
Thank you for the gliding pelicans.
The p...Steve,<br /><br />Thank you for the gliding pelicans.<br /><br />The pelicans, revenant. We wish.<br /><br />I am swimming in rose trivia as well as exhaustion after a night of immersion in virtually fragrant petals.<br /><br />And ah, the colours of these gardens (of the mind)...<br /><br />Those big rich yellow Graham Thomas... one of several varieties that did not make the cut. Bumped out here by Jimmy's apparent preference for the beautiful delicate Nevada. <br /><br />It seems every great lady (and perhaps a few not so great ladies and even a few men) listed in Brett's also has a rose named after it/her/them.<br /><br />There is even a Rosa "Jane Asher", so it seems being a minor film star will even qualify you for a rose-naming. Maybe.<br /><br />(The language imagination still dallying over Zeph's "even more stunningly named Ghislaine de Féligonde...")<br /><br />Jimmy writes somewhere -- losing my mind, can't remember where -- that it was important to him to learn the names of all the roses; and then to forget the names, and remember just the (as per today's poem by you, mutating a bit) "accessible phenomena". <br /><br />And there's the late poem "Princess Di": <br /><br />"...you smiled and/ you left a soft pink rose/ on my bed and I went/ back of beyond to/ the place so far away/ where time is eternal and/ infinity is grasped not/ understood: and when I/ came round there was the rose/ in a clear plastic container/ aslant the petals not yet/ curling back and I knew that/ the rose was extra special/ and you came and I asked/ 'Who gave me that rose?' You/ laughed and you said, 'Why/ I did: its name is/ Princess Di..."<br /><br />And too, Herrick: "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may..."(indirectly? derived from De rosis nascentibus, late Latin poem by Ausonius, 4th c. AD, describing roses blooming @ Paestum, and urging that they be gathered before the lustre is lost... quoted by Burton 1621, though surely Herrick also knew the original).<br /><br />Schuyler & Herrick,<br />& the curtain rose<br />upon the day sun...<br /><br />...The higher he's a getting;<br />The sooner will his Race be run,<br />And nearer he's to Setting.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-65965117277738045842010-06-07T08:45:16.011-07:002010-06-07T08:45:16.011-07:00"And the things I only write between the line..."And the things I only write between the lines. What can one write/between the lines? Not one damn thing."<br /><br />Or a whole life.<br /><br />Thanks Marcia (I like this kick).TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67281527380156245322010-06-07T08:44:34.254-07:002010-06-07T08:44:34.254-07:00Tom,
Thanks for these beautiful roses (poem plus ...Tom,<br /><br />Thanks for these beautiful roses (poem plus photos), to Jimmy's list of loved ones I would add the Belle of Portugal (which climbs the cypress trunk in the yard AND has bloomed twice this year, January and May), and the Cecile Brunners (beginning to fade now but they will go on for months) and the Graham Thomas (whose yellows by the front door and the fence across the way are now beginning to burst) and that unknown old Bolinas giant at the back corner of the house (under which the displaced quail have found a new home, its green now covered with pink-red. . . .<br /><br />6.7<br /><br />grey whiteness of clouds above shadowed<br />ridge, red-tailed hawk calling in right<br />foreground, no sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> these phenomena inaccessible,<br /> that system of thought<br /><br /> as consequence, painting its<br /> own aim, time of other<br /><br />silver of sunlight reflected in channel,<br />line of pelicans gliding toward horizonSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-61801607649176613602010-06-07T07:38:31.646-07:002010-06-07T07:38:31.646-07:00One interesting addendum here. This Schuyler poem ...One interesting addendum here. This Schuyler poem first appeared in the New Yorker. And when it did, as Simon (who by the way has been a faithful editor to Jimmy on more than one occasion), pointed out to us last week, there was a bit more to it. <br /><br />As Simon further remarks today,<br /><br />"...absent in error, I think in the printing in the book<br />but very much part of it (in its original New Yorker publication),<br />a single embittered additional comment,<br />set off, as an extra line at the end:<br />'Odious hateful vandal'"<br /><br /><br />That, as they used to say, puts a fine point on it.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-68947076825992434662010-06-07T07:32:25.484-07:002010-06-07T07:32:25.484-07:00Two more comments I've found on my week's ...Two more comments I've found on my week's time with Schuyler and then I promise to get off this kick. Schuyler stated (this from the introduction to The Diary of James Schuyler) "I like an art where disparate elements form an entity." Just perfect.<br /><br />And from The Morning of the Poem, very near the end, these lines struck me: "Before/dawn I woke and made my oatmeal, orange juice and/Coffee and thought how this poem seems mostly about what I've lost:/the one who mattered most, my best friend, Paul/(Who mattered least), the Island, the California wild-flower paper,/the this, the that, Whippoorwill, buried friends,/ And the things I only write between the lines. What can one write/between the lines? Not one damn thing. Look over/Your shoulder, into the future: one thing I want to see is heavy/snow falling in Chelsea, to walk in it, snow/Blowing in my face, from where I live to where you live, to stomp/the snow off in your vestibule, to punch your bell,/ To hear the buzzer buzz, to push the door and see the open inside/ door and you smiling there..."Marciahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17150292834089323928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-14133854962433405922010-06-07T07:24:08.458-07:002010-06-07T07:24:08.458-07:00Since Simon says it, I think it must be true.Since Simon says it, I think it must be true.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-43089086824227003662010-06-07T07:00:29.130-07:002010-06-07T07:00:29.130-07:00Hey Tom, thanks for this post - beautiful!Hey Tom, thanks for this post - beautiful!Simonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-71437972735799999652010-06-07T06:52:39.854-07:002010-06-07T06:52:39.854-07:00Zeph,
We do love the idea of a small demure volun...Zeph,<br /><br />We do love the idea of a small demure volunteer army of Maiden's Blush and Rose de Rescht attacking the insouciant arrivistes. <br /> <br /><br />Marcia,<br /><br />You have helped to work me up into a light lather of Schuyler enthusiasm this week.<br /><br /><br />Curtis,<br /><br />What the diminished gardens of your alma mater cannot provide, you will always be able to find here. Maybe. We hope.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-1998656622441791512010-06-07T06:26:43.108-07:002010-06-07T06:26:43.108-07:00At my college reunion this weekend, on a campus wh...At my college reunion this weekend, on a campus which is an officially designated arboretum, I visited, as I always do, the rose garden, which seemed somehow diminished in stature and loveliness this year. This poem and garden tour make up for that loss.Curtis Robertsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-76720836253751031502010-06-07T06:20:09.365-07:002010-06-07T06:20:09.365-07:00Lovely -- a great way to start the day and week wi...Lovely -- a great way to start the day and week with horse-chestnut trees and roses and the ever-delightful Schuyler.Marciahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17150292834089323928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84111529596399801222010-06-07T06:07:15.995-07:002010-06-07T06:07:15.995-07:00Oh, I love this, not only is it a wonderful poem b...Oh, I love this, not only is it a wonderful poem but it happened to me! Not the horse-chestnuts, but my lovingly assembled garden of old roses was ripped up by the next owners of the house. I also hoped that they'd been thoroughly scratched, especially by the Maiden's Blush (which has vicious thorns, make of that what you will).<br /><br />I did grow Lady Hillingdon, and Félicité et Perpétue, and Zéphirine Drouhin who gave me my internet moniker, and the even more stunningly named Ghislaine de Féligonde. And very wonderful they all were. Nevertheless, the loss of a horse chestnut would be far more serious.<br /><br />Thank you so much for posting this, Tom.Zephirinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02809525772159756122noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-27062817466388772342010-06-07T04:59:07.365-07:002010-06-07T04:59:07.365-07:00This post is dedicated to Zephirine, who so wonder...This post is dedicated to Zephirine, who so wonderfully designed this blog in the first place; and to Angelica, who so heroically typed up Jimmy's love letter to roses and horse-chestnut trees; and to Simon, who so kindly reminded us of this poem last week.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com