 | The Germ, Issue #4: Art and Poetry: Being Thoughts towards Nature |  |
A Venetian Pastoral, by Giorgione; in the Louvre.
(*** In this picture, two cavaliers and an undraped woman are seated in the grass, with musical instruments, while another woman dips a vase into a well hard by, for water.)
Water, for anguish of the solstice,—yea,
Over the vessel's mouth still widening
Listlessly dipt to let the water in
With slow vague gurgle. Blue, and deep away,
The heat lies silent at the brink of day.
Now the hand trails upon the viol-string
That sobs; and the grown faces cease to sing,
Mournful with complete pleasure. Her eyes stray
In distance; through her lips the pipe doth creep
And leaves them pouting; the green shadowed grass
Is cool against her naked flesh. Let be:
Do not now speak unto her lest she weep,
Nor name this ever. Be it as it was:
Silence of heat, and solemn poetry.
Over the vessel's mouth still widening
Listlessly dipt to let the water in
With slow vague gurgle. Blue, and deep away,
The heat lies silent at the brink of day.
Now the hand trails upon the viol-string
That sobs; and the grown faces cease to sing,
Mournful with complete pleasure. Her eyes stray
In distance; through her lips the pipe doth creep
And leaves them pouting; the green shadowed grass
Is cool against her naked flesh. Let be:
Do not now speak unto her lest she weep,
Nor name this ever. Be it as it was:
Silence of heat, and solemn poetry.
| The Germ, Issue #4: Art and Poetry: Being Thoughts towards Nature | |