Friday, February 14, 2014

The Frost performs its secret ministry












Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.


from "Frost at Midnight"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge


















8 comments:

  1. jesus. jesus jesus jesus. there is no way you could have posted only one of these images, is there? you must keep at touching and touching the frost over and over again entranced. i can't say anything else. i can only stand beside you enraptured, touching))))))))))

    xo
    erin

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    1. erin: yes! you know ... you have stood by this window and been entranced, and you know :-)

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  2. As often happens when I see photographs as magnificent as these, a poem popped into my head. This is the one your glorious, feathery, gorgeous frost pics brought to me, especially that first line:


    God's World
    By Edna St. Vincent Millay


    O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
    Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
    Thy mists, that roll and rise!
    Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
    And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
    To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
    World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

    Long have I known a glory in it all,
    But never knew I this;
    Here such a passion is
    As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear
    Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
    My soul is all but out of me,—let fall
    No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

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    1. Marion: thank you for the poem!! i know this feeling, when the world is so overwhelming that it seems one more beautiful leaf, one more feather or frosted window, will be unbearable ... and yet, we always want more, don't we?, we go to life begging for more :-))

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  3. Beautiful photos, and one of the greatest of poems.

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    1. Clarissa: yes, i agree wholeheartedly, "one of the greatest of poems" ... all of Coleridge's "conversation poems" are deep inside me:-))

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  4. Each one grows uniquely. And we must be moved.

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    1. Ruth: it is the uniqueness of their growth that i can never tire of, never stop standing before silently and amazed ... a constant negotiation between pattern and randomness, or negotiation of pattern from randomness ... the moment of this balance is what art tries to identify and describe, i think, though no artist can approach the precision and beauty of the frost ...

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