William Morris: The Nymph’s Song to Hylas

怀抱花朵的孩子

The Nymph’s Song to Hylas
  
William Morris (1834–1896)
  
  
I KNOW a little garden-close  
Set thick with lily and red rose,  
Where I would wander if I might  
From dewy dawn to dewy night,  
And have one with me wandering.         5
  
And though within it no birds sing,  
And though no pillar’d house is there,  
And though the apple boughs are bare  
Of fruit and blossom, would to God,  
Her feet upon the green grass trod,         10
And I beheld them as before!  
  
There comes a murmur from the shore,  
And in the place two fair streams are,  
Drawn from the purple hills afar,  
Drawn down unto the restless sea;         15
The hills whose flowers ne’er fed the bee,  
The shore no ship has ever seen,  
Still beaten by the billows green,  
Whose murmur comes unceasingly  
Unto the place for which I cry.         20
For which I cry both day and night,  
For which I let slip all delight,  
That maketh me both deaf and blind,  
Careless to win, unskill’d to find,  
And quick to lose what all men seek.         25
  
Yet tottering as I am, and weak,  
Still have I left a little breath  
To seek within the jaws of death  
An entrance to that happy place;  
To seek the unforgotten face         30
Once seen, once kiss’d, once reft from me  
Anigh the murmuring of the sea.

怀抱花朵的孩子

William Morris
Born: 24 March 1834
Place of Birth: Elm House in Walthamstow, England
Died: 3 October 1896
Place of Death: Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, England

"O how I long to keep the world from narrowing on me, and to look at things bigly & kindly!"
(William Morris)

William Morris, one of the most brilliant and innovative progenitors of modern graphic design, was born at Elm House, the family estate, one of nine children. Despite the "boorish" Welsh blood, the family had done quite well for themselves. (It's interesting to note that also in 1834, popular classical composer Berlioz wrote "Childe Harold," based on Byron's poems.)

Growing up, Morris loved the romantic chivalry and simplicity of anything medieval (later he said he felt he'd been born out of his time). He read Walter Scott; his parents even got him a pony so he could play knight. He was happy and even spoiled, though quite temperamental. Much later his daughter Jenny was diagnosed with epilepsy, and he often wondered if some of his 'rages' weren't epilepsy (or Tourettes) related. He was particularly close to a sister, Emma, at least until she got married. Later, he wrote poetry inspired by Chaucer, Tennyson, Keats and Browning.

His romantic attachment to the natural world was already forming and evolving. His textiles --furniture, wall paper and fabric designs-- were to become the epitome of 'the organic,' which was so much a part of his perception of reality. While religiously agnostic, the physical world was forever jolting him by its sheer majesty, giving him what we would now call an almost spiritual 'global sense.'

While attending Exeter College at Oxford in 1853, he met Ned Burne-Jones. Morris and Burne-Jones found a common passion for medievalism, particularly the Arthurian legends. Together, they toured the great Gothic cathedrals of France. They would remain lifelong friends.

In 1856, Morris left school and moved to Red Lion Square with Ned, now an artist being mentored by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Morris was receiving a generous allowance for those days, and was able to be generous with his less prosperous friends.

While his parents would've preferred Morris to pursue a life with the clergy, he was bound and determined to find Beauty in a different way. He worked for the architectural office of G. E. Street and became interested in old building preservation. Preserving gothic and medieval styles were very much a part of his Pre-Raphaelite vision, as is later illustrated with his attempt to resurrect the illuminated manuscript.

In 1857 Morris, Burne-Jones, Rossetti and other Pre-Raphaelites painted the Oxford Union frescoes. Morris' philosophies converged with the Pre-Raphaelites, and evolved into his unique design style: organic in an age of artificial colors, mass production, and unnatural designs.

Morris met Jane Burden, who was modeling for Rossetti. She and her sister were local shop girls, born poor, as were a number of the Pre-Raphaelite women. The artist's attraction to the myth of Pygmalion transforming Galatea was another popular image in those days.

Morris painted Jane as Isolde (medieval wife of King Mark who falls in love with Tristan) in his only known canvas. He wrote, "I cannot paint you, but I love you." Maybe he felt he could better write about her? Charles Algernon Swinburne encouraged him to consider having his poems published.

Her great eyes, standing far apart,
Draw up some memory from her heart,
And gaze out very mournfully;
--Beata mean Domina!--
So beautiful and kind they are,
But most times looking out afar,
Waiting for something, not for me.
--Beata mean Domina!-- ***

The following year, Morris was twenty-five and Jane Burden eighteen, they were married. Years later, Gabriel and Jane had an affair (see Jane and Rossetti's sides). Had Morris sensed the undercurrent then? I think so, and more than that, I think he accepted it. His view toward Guenevere was always a sympathetic one.
While Morris was courting Jane, he had her and her sister learn to weave. The first years of their marriage were quite happy. Their two daughters, Jenny and May, were born. Morris was obviously a devoted father, referring to them in letters as "the littles." Their daughter May became a leading weaver in England.

In 1860, Morris commissioned PhilipWebb to design Red House in South London. Morris and others we now associate with the Pre-Raphaelites decorated Morris' new house in homage to medievalism-- they painted murals, wove tapestries, built furniture in a style that would later inspire the Arts & Crafts movement, and designed stained glass windows that would inspire Art Nouveau. (Probably out of possessiveness more than anything else, Morris hated Beardley's illustrations for his beloved tale of Arthur).

In 1861, Morris began writing The Earthly Paradise. (He often wrote while weaving, which explains why some of his poems are so long.) In 1862, Morris designed the first of many wallpapers for the Company.

His decorating style was revolutionary because it was natural in an age just embracing mass-production and lower standards in quality, color and design. Morris was such a perfectionist about color that for weeks his hands were dyed blue as he sloshed around in the dye vats (I'd have liked to have seen that), searching for the perfect hue. His style is rich but simple, rejecting the opulence of the French, royalist influence on the Victorian, and focusing on the more gothic, medieval side of the era. Morris believed that everything in the home should be beautiful and functional (a philosophy that the Bloomsbury movement adopted). Frank Lloyd Wright said Morris was a direct influence. And this can all be credited to the man who once said, "I am a boor and the son of a boor!"

By 1865, troubled by the affair between Jane and Rossetti, Morris grew obsessed with taking a pilgrimage to Iceland. Their myths, steeped with brotherhood and endurance, touched him deeply. He made two pivotal trips there, eventually producing the first major translations of the myths. The translations were no doubt read later by D.H. Lawrence who had his own 'ice-queen' named Gudrun ("Women in Love").

The living conditions in Iceland took him totally by surprise. He'd always been liberal, but now he saw something that transcended the British social structure. In Iceland, everyone lived poor. Yet they were happy in a noble, teeth-gritting sort of way. When he returned to England, he was shocked at how the houses seemed so big against the horizon. In Iceland, the houses were small and functional-- and the countryside seemed so awesome and vast.

After his second trip to Iceland, Morris returned home and began dissolving his friendship with Rossetti, first ousting him from Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire (they'd shared tenancy since 1871). Without the share they'd been collecting from Rossetti, Morris moved his wife and daughters to the smaller Kelmscott House in Hammersmith. Morris returned to one of his favorite past-times: weaving. His daughters were educated well for those days.

His trips to Iceland were part of the catalyst for getting Morris more involved in politics, more specifically British Marx-based Socialism. He edited the Socialist League's journal, Commonweal. He continued to lecture on art and socialism but he also devoted more time to his fiction. In his politics, his writing, even his designs there was a theme: endure the hardship and a new, better day will dawn.

His published works during this time were mostly political and nonfiction, though interestingly enough done in the Chaucerian illuminated manuscript style, which for awhile Morris hoped would return to fashion. In 1891, Morris founded Kelmscott Press with specifically this goal in mind.

The Wood Beyond the World, one of the most influential of Morris's Utopian prose fantasies, was published in 1894. His prose influenced the burgeoning genre of fantasy/utopia/science fiction-- C.S. Lewisnamed Morris as a favorite.

He died at the age of 62, at home, his doctor giving his cause of death as "simply being William Morris and having done more work that most ten men." He was buried in the Kelmscott Village churchyard.

From: http://www.walrus.com/~gibralto/acorn/germ/WMorris.html

kokho

Thank you for a fine referral...

mu

Fond of this one, full of fantasy,especially impressed by the graceful verbs.

kokho

especially impressed by the graceful verbs...

I believe you mean.. selection and association of verbs.