The Low Dirge That Ever Rose and Died
8×10″ pen on paper
September 26, 2012
Inspired by the following passage from George MacDonald’s “A Story of the Sea Shore”:
“Such frenzy slow invaded the poor girl.
Not hers the hovering sense of marriage bells
Tuning the air with fragrance of sweet sound;
But the low dirge that ever rose and died,
Recurring without pause or any close,
Like one verse chaunted aye in sleepless brain.”
Friendship in the Woods to Win
8×10″ oil painting on canvas paper
September 12, 2012
Inspired by the following passage from George MacDonald’s poem “The Dweller’s Therein”:
Down a warm alley, early in the year,
Among the woods, with all the sunshine in
And all the winds outside it, I begin
To think that something gracious will appear,
If anything of grace inhabit here,
Or there be friendship in the woods to win.
Might one but find companion more akin
To trees and grass and happy daylight clear,
And in this wood spend one long hour at home!
The fairies do not love so bright a place,
And angels to the forest never come,
But I have dreamed of some harmonious race,
The kindred of the shapes that haunt the shore
Of Music’s flow and flow for evermore.
Shadow of Me
11×14″ watercolor on paper
September 8, 2012
Inspired by the following passage from George MacDonald’s Phantastes:
“Shadow of me!” I said, “which art not me, but which representest thyself to me as me; here I may find a shadow of light which will devour thee, the shadow of darkness! Here I may find a blessing which will fall on thee as a curse, and damn thee to the blackness whence thou hast emerged unbidden.”
Like a Book Which a Boy Reads by Stealth
7×9″ pen on paper
August 23, 2012
Inspired by the following passage from George MacDonald’s Thomas Wingfold, Curate:
“He was still studying her like a book which a boy reads by stealth….”
A Heart Bereft
9×12″ watercolor on paper
July 28, 2012
Inspired by the following passage from George MacDonald’s “The Old Garden,” from “A Threefold Cord”:
Her look is hopeless yet eager,
The look of a heart bereft.
