Saturday, October 16, 2010

To Autumn

Claude Monet, Autumn Effect at Argenteuill
To Autumn
by William Blake
O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayst rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

"The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head.

"The spirits of the air live on the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees."
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat;
Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.
 
 
 
 
This past week I had the great pleasure of discovering a very talented singer named Eva Cassidy who is singing in this video. Sadly, I also discovered she no longer graces this earth with her presence, having succumbed to cancer in 1996. There are many lovely videos of her songs on Youtube, but I chose this one for the beautiful pictures of autumn foliage. If there are any readers out there who care to send me a translation of  the language in this video, I would very much appreciate it.


Claude Monet, Waterlilies series (1920-26)


Claude Monet has always been one of my favourite Impressionist painters. He also was a dedicated gardener who often used his garden as a subject of his paintings. I would love to visit his house at Giverny, France.  Many people do visit and many take photographs. Here are some photographs of his lovely garden in the Fall.


It ocurred to me that although I love all things British, (poets included), I should include a poem by a Canadian author.  This one paints a picture of autumn in the Canadian woods.

Here is the poem "The Solitary Woodman" by Charles G.D. Roberts



Some of my favourite Fall scenes by the Canadian artist  






Arthur Lismer
Frank H. Johnston

Frank Carmichael

A.Y. Jackson

JEH MacDonald
Lawren Harris





And here is another work of art....Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisborne!
Couldn't you just "Fall" for him?

11 comments:

Skully said...

Eva Cassidy is wonderful, I used to play her on my radio show years ago!

Avalon said...

Yes, I could.
Very pretty post,as always.

Anonymous said...

Excellent build up and great punchline -- love this.

DEZMOND said...

oh, that autumny pic of RA is just super amazing.

I do love Autumn, it's my favourite season after winter. It just brings the elegance and magic back to our lives.

JaneGS said...

You did yourself proud with that post, engaging so many of the senses and touching on the various emotions of autumn.

I consider myself among the "fallen" :)

mulubinba said...

Lovely post!! Thank you Phylly - your blog is such a treasure. (... we're in spring here though ...lol!)

tyme_4_t said...

Great post! I just spent the weekend in PEI and marveled at the autumn colours!

Oh - I have fallen and I don't want to get up! ;)

MaryKwizMiz said...

argh. wish you'd not mention the word 'fall' anymore.. :)
Autumn though I love!!! Yesterday the weather was brilliant, and I dragged Mr. T our for a wee walk.. out in the sticks where there are no people.. and where he didn't have to be embarrassed to be caught throwing sticks at conkers and kicking up heaps of golden and copper coloured leaves (me, I have no such inhibitions)
Golden autumn (as opposed to wet, slippery, grey autumn) is actually my favourite season. Wish it could last. But now I have your pictures in my head and will simply make it last in my mind :)
thanks a million. And have a wonderful autumn.

Myrtle said...

What a beautiful post Phylly, a lovely collage of Autumn.

Of course the climax of the piece is the rather handsome chap at the end there:)

Phylly3 said...

@Skully -- Nice that you have heard of Eva Cassidy -- she has such an amazing voice! Your own radio show?! I'd love to hear more about that!

Phylly3 said...

@ All.. Thanks for the lovely comments! I do love Fall -- Not your fall TeeTotallyNot -- that was an unfortunate accident!
Unfortunately, this year the leaves didn't last very long as we had quite a bit of wind.