She Walks in Beauty

Vincent Van Gogh

Starry Night Over the Rhone

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in Beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

~ Lord Byron ~

Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2

Audrey Hepburn

Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

It is my lady, O, it is my love!

O, that she knew she were!

She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?

Her eye discourses; I will answer it.

I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they return.

What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,

As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven

Would through the airy region stream so bright

That birds would sing and think it were not night.

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might touch that cheek!

~ William Shakespeare ~

Day and Night

M. C. Escher

Day and Night

Day and Night

Day and night . . . the shadows move too slowly

From dark to light she promised she could know me

Remember when . . . I watched her on the stairway

She was drinkin' wine . . . and she told me what the stars say . . .

Some destinies, they should not be delivered . . .

But in her eyes I saw a thousand reasons

Day and night

I feel her skin . . . it's thin and white as pressed milk

I closed my eyes and she vanished just like burnt silk

And what remains was like some fallen thunder

And my lips were chained; they were filled with empty wonder

But the stars tell lies, it blinds the only warning

And when darkness dies, there's nothing left but morning . . .

Just day and night

Day and night . . . the shadows start to scatter

When touched by light . . . each promise made is shattered

And even when the question find the answer

But even then, they're something like a dancer

But even then, they're something like a dancer

Like day and night . . . dark to light

I move from day to night

~ Jim Carroll Band ~

Quiet Girl

Reginald Gray

Portrait of Jill Neville

Quiet Girl

I would liken you

To a night without stars

Were it not for your eyes.

I would liken you

To a sleep without dreams

Were it not for your songs.

~ Langston Hughes ~

Nothing is True

Andy Warhol

Marilyn Monroe

Nothing is True

You get nothin’ back for all you’ve saved

Just eternity in a spacious grave

She said, nothing is true, everything is permitted

Things just go from bad to worse

Starts like a kiss and ends like a curse

But nothing’s true, she said everything is permitted

She got jewels on her tongue to time the stars

She drives all morning in unmarked cars

But nothing’s true, it is all permitted

She got these special tools just to keep things tight

They robbed her eyes long ago of light

But nothing’s true, she told me it’s all permitted

She got inscrutable poise and nihilist charms

She gets her sleep through tubes in her arm

She said nothing is true, she said everything is permitted

She nods on graves, the marble’s cold and white,

Her dreams surround the sun like a satellite

She said nothin’ is true, she told me it’s all permitted

The spiders milk her thigh, it does not phase her

She cleans her skin with a krypton laser

Nothing is true, everything is permitted

She got heels so high, she got a gown so thin

Her eyes stop the whip before it tames her sin

She says nothin’ is true, everything is permitted

Until they perfect the techniques to clone

You all better remember you’re all alone

Because nothing is true, she said everything is permitted

~ Jim Carroll Band ~

Dream Girl

Edvard Munch

Madonna

Dream Girl

You will come one day in a waver of love,

Tender as dew, impetuous as rain,

The tan of the sun will be on your skin,

The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech,

You will pose with a hill-flower grace.

You will come, with your slim, expressive arms,

A poise of the head no sculptor has caught

And nuances spoken with shoulder and neck,

Your face in a pass-and-repass of moods

As many as skies in delicate change

Of cloud and blue and flimmering sun.

Yet,

You may not come, O girl of a dream,

We may but pass as the world goes by

And take from a look of eyes into eyes,

A film of hope and a memoried day.

~ Carl Sandburg ~

There Be None of Beauty's Daughters

Paul Gauguin

Hail Mary

There Be None of Beauty's Daughters

There be none of Beauty's daughters

With a magic like Thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:

When, as if its sound were causing

The charm’d ocean's pausing,

The waves lie still and gleaming,

And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:

And the midnight moon is weaving

Her bright chain o'er the deep,

Whose breast is gently heaving

As an infant's asleep:

So the spirit bows before thee

To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

~ Lord Byron ~

Venus Transiens

Sandro Botticelli

The Birth of Venus

Venus Transiens

Tell me,

Was Venus more beautiful

Than you are,

When she topped

The crinkled waves,

Drifting shoreward

On her plaited shell?

Was Botticelli's vision

Fairer than mine;

And were the painted rosebuds

He tossed his lady,

Of better worth

Than the words I blow about you

To cover your too great loveliness

As with a gauze

Of misted silver?

For me,

You stand poised

In the blue and buoyant air,

cinctured by bright winds,

Treading the sunlight.

And the waves which precede you

Ripple and stir

The sands at my feet.

~ Amy Lowell ~

The Way You Look Tonight

Edvard Munch

Eye in Eye

The Way You Look Tonight

Some day, when I'm awfully low,

When the world is cold,

I will feel a glow just thinking of you...

And the way you look tonight.

Yes you're lovely, with your smile so warm

And your cheeks so soft,

There is nothing for me but to love you,

And the way you look tonight.

With each word your tenderness grows,

Tearing my fear apart...

And that laugh that wrinkles your nose,

It touches my foolish heart.

Lovely ... Never, ever change.

Keep that breathless charm.

Won't you please arrange it ?

'Cause I love you ... Just the way you look tonight.

Mm, Mm, Mm, Mm,

Just the way you look to-night.

~ Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern ~

somewhere i have never travelled

Jackson Pollock

Eyes in the Heat

somewhere i have never travelled

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

~ e. e. cummings ~

A Drinking Song

Gerard ter Borch

Woman Drinking with Sleeping Solder

A Drinking Song

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

~ Willam Butler Yeats ~