penwithlit

When you are standing at your hero’s grave,
Or near some homeless village wherehe died,
Remember, throughyour heart’s rekindlingpride,
The Germansoldiers who were loyaland brave.

Men foughtlike brutes; and hideousthings were done;
And you have nourishedhatred, harshand blind.
But in that Golgothaperhaps you’ll find
The mothersof the men who killedyour son.

I only came across this poem recently: what a powerful one it is, in the light of some of his others, and its theme. After the war, there is peace, and a coming to terms with what happened before, however difficult that may be.

Sassoon creates a situation that would have been familiar to his readers; British relatives would have to travel to France or Belgium to visit either the grave of a loved one, if a grave existed, or to see the dead soldier commemorated somewhere…

Gratitude to Old Teachers

When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?

Water that once could take no human weight—
We were students then— holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness.

Robert Bly (1926 – 2021)

I did like this simple poem as Robert Bly is not always easy to fathom (excuse the pun).

The journey of life is like a walk across a frozen lake. And I remember as an eight-year-old testing a frozen pond with parts too thin to walk on. Our walk or life journey is unique, and we walk on the unwalked.

We have underneath support from others all our life. Sometimes completely…

A random survey of self-portraits created by women through the centuries

Japanese artist and poet Imperial Princess
Akenomiya Teruko (1634-1727)

Self-portrait, ND / Painting / Sennyū-ji Temple Museum Shinsho-den, Kyoto, Japan

[2 embedded links above]

A random survey of self-portraits created by women through the centuries

French/Tuscan painter Elisabeth Chaplin (1890-1982)

1. Two Nudes or Double Self-portrait, c.1918 / Oil on canvas / Private collection

2. Self-portrait with Red Shawl, 1912 / Oil on canvas / Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy

[3 embedded links above]

Another acquisition this month; Leuthen (Gedicht) by Christian Friedrich Scherenberg.

I have yet to read it all, but the first verse seems to fit well with the famous painting of Fritz after the battle of Kolin.

In Nimburg am Brunnen, die Schatten über sich,
Auf einem alten Röhrstamm sitzt König Friedrich,
Von seiner Zeit schlechtweg der König titulirt,
Wiewohl noch mancher König zu seiner Zeit regiert,
Und malt mit seinem Krückstock, der aller Welt bekannt,
Versunken in sich selber, Figuren in den Sand.

Or indeed the one below, which I’ve never seen before, both painted before the book was written (1852).

To finish, a Zungenbrecher:

Der Leutnant von Leuthen befahl seinen Leuten nicht eher zu läuten, bis der Leutnant von Leuthen seinen Leuten das Läuten befahl.

Does anybody still say this after all these years?