Old Friends: Rediscovering the Pre-Raphaelites

This painting, called "The Blind Girl," by John Everett Millais (1829-1896) was part of a Pre-Raphaelite exhibit at the Cleveland Art Museum a few years ago. The PRs were an avant guarde group of artists and writers who rebelled against the prevailing ideas about art by recapturing a medieval aesthetic of riotous color, mythical themes, escapism, and sensuality. Rereading Swinburne and the Rossettis after all these years has been like meeting old friends--a real treat.

Tennyson (1809-1892) was not a PR, but this love poem has a certain PR sensibility. It's from his Songs from the Princess. This lyric has one of the most beautiful lines in English literature, "Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars"--an allusion to the manifestation of Zeus to Danae as a shower of gold (I don't know what inspired the king of the gods to take on such a poetic physical form, but it was rather a nice change from horny bulls and swans).

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.