Harvest Home

RAISE THE SONG OF HARVEST HOME,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Over The Garden Wall

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Come, ye thankful people, come,
Raise the song of harvest home!
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin . . .

Henry Alford (1810 – 1871)

Idyll VII. Harvest-Home

Now look, this road holds holiday to-day:
For banded brethren solemnize a feast
To richly-dight Demeter, thanking her
For her good gifts: since with no grudging hand
Hath the boon goddess filled the wheaten floors.
So come: the way, the day, is thine as mine . . .

. . who so glad as we?
A wealth of elm and poplar shook o'erhead;
Hard by, a sacred spring flowed gurgling on
From the Nymphs' grot, and in the sombre boughs
The sweet cicada chirped laboriously.
Hid in the thick thorn-bushes far away
The treefrog's note was heard; the crested lark
Sang with the goldfinch; turtles made their moan,
And o'er the fountain hung the gilded bee.
All of rich summer smacked, of autumn all:
Pears at our feet, and apples at our side
Rolled in luxuriance; branches on the ground
Sprawled, overweighed with damsons; while we brushed
From the cask's head the crust of four long years.
Say, ye who dwell upon Parnassian peaks . . .

As, ladies, ye bid flow that day for us
All by Demeter's shrine at harvest-home?
Beside whose cornstacks may I oft again
Plant my broad fan: while she stands by and smiles,
Poppies and cornsheaves on each laden arm.

Theocritus
Greek poet, born in Sicily
(born c. 300 BC, died after 260 BC)

New College Gardens, Oxford

On this old lawn, where lost hours pass
Across the shadows dark with dew,
Where autumn on the thick sweet grass
Has laid a weary leaf or two,
When the young morning, keenly sweet,
Breathes secrets to the silent air,
Happy are they whose lingering feet
May wander lonely there.

The enchantment of the dreaming limes,
The magic of the quiet hours,
Breathe unheard tales of other times
And other destinies than ours;

The feet that long ago walked here
Still, noiseless, walk beside our feet,
Poor ghosts, who found this garden dear,
And found the morning sweet!

Age weeps that it no more may hold
The heart-ache that youth clasps so close,
Pain finely shaped in pleasure's mould,
A thorn deep hidden in a rose.
Here is the immortal thorny rose
That may in no new garden grow--
Its root is in the hearts of those
Who walked here long ago.

Edith Nesbit (1858 – 1924)

Carpe diem!

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Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, November 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

One Long Staircase

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Golden Stair, 1880
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833 - 1898)

There would be one long staircase just going up
And one even longer coming down
And one more leading nowhere, just for show . . .

~ from Fiddler on the Roof ~
Believe it or not, we have actually lived in a couple of houses over the years that seemed to have staircases going nowhere, just for show. In our recent Indiana Victorian, for example, the front stairs and the back stairs met at exactly the same spot on the second floor landing, so it was not entirely clear what the extra stairs were for or how they had ever been useful. Yet, as it turned out, we went up and down the back stairs ten times a day, and rarely used the main stairs at all. Turns out the back stairs were incredibly useful and the front were just for show!

We decorated the wall over the front bannister with the above picture of a beautiful, showy staircase. The original hangs in the Tate, but I'm sure we purchased the poster from the museum shop at the Lady Lever Gallery, our favorite haven of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, in Port Sunlight, England. I never glanced at this ethereal painting without thinking of these otherworldly lyrics of the 1970s:

There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for

And she's buying a stairway to heaven
There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know, sometimes words have two meanings
In a tree by the brook
There's a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven . . .

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all, yeah
To be a rock and not to roll
And she's buying a stairway to heaven

from Stairway to Heaven (1971)
by Led Zeppelin

Symphony in White, No. 1, 1861 - 62
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)

"a lady . . . who shines white light . . . "

Symphony in White, No. 2, 1864-65
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)

See also
Symphony in White, No. 3

And
paintings at the Frick

And previous posts:
To See A Fine Picture
Going Barefoot
Kitchen Art
Complication and Plenitude
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, October 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com