A busy Halloween for me, so I’ll shamelessly offer up an excerpt from the master — a bit from The Oval Portrait, by Edgar Allen Poe.
She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee; all light and smiles, and frolicsome as the young fawn; loving and cherishing all things; hating only the Art which was her rival; dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to pourtray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead.
But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and from day to day. And be was a passionate, and wild, and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the painter (who had high renown) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak.
And in sooth some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance in low words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of the power of the painter than of his deep love for her whom he depicted so surpassingly well. But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret; for the painter had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes from canvas merely, even to regard the countenance of his wife. And he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sate beside him. And when many weeks bad passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, ‘This is indeed Life itself!’ turned suddenly to regard his beloved:- She was dead!
Great story. My offering, much lighter, follows.
It isn’t National Poetry Month but to paraphrase the late Wisconsin hockey Coach, Badger Bob, “Everyday is a good day for…poetry.”
And Happy Halloween, a favorite holiday. Tricks or treats; money or eats.
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May Swenson was born in Logan, Utah, in 1913. She attended Utah State University, Logan, and received a bachelor’s degree in 1939. She taught poetry at Bryn Mawr, the University of North Carolina, the University of California at Riverside, Purdue University and Utah State University and was an editor at New Directions publishers from 1959 to 1966.
Ms. Swenson’s poems appeared in many significant publications. She served as a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets from 1980 to 1989. She died in Oceanview, Delaware, in 1989. I miss her.
(This information from the American Academy of Poets.)
Having created our own “boundaries” and reduced the vision to the canvas by concenration on the finer points, life seems to have been past by?
It made me think of Einstein in a way and the disorganization that may go on outside of the periphery of the vision he might of contained, to solving the priority and problems of the day?
Is this what hapens to good theoretcians and mathematicians like Andrew Wiles of mathematics would shut themselves away for a time, to be totally absorbed, and come out of it, whole? 🙂
I think in a sense this inductive/deductive process inherent, would be more significant in terms of retaining views and pushing the boundary to be more inclusive of what reality contains.
Hence in this sense, the gravity of the situation might be quite strong indeed, and the weight with which we are held entranced, saids something about our true freedoms?