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From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer’s story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight Drawn after you, – you pattern of all those.    Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,    As with your shadow I with these did play.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet XCVIII

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Takato Yamamoto

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My own heart let me more have pity on; let Me live to my sad self hereafter kind, Charitable; not live this tormented mind With this tormented mind tormenting yet. I cast for comfort I can no more get By groping round my comfortless, than blind Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet. Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile 's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather — as skies Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

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Death of Pentheus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Vettii

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It was a hard thing to undo this knot. The rainbow shines, but only in the thought Of him that looks. Yet not in that alone, For who makes rainbows by invention? And many standing round a waterfall See one bow each, yet not the same to all, But each a hand's breadth further than the next. The sun on falling waters writes the text Which yet is in the eye or in the thought. It was a hard thing to undo this knot

Gerard Manley Hopkins

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After First Communion (1892)

Carlo Frithjof Smith

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Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire! I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the Fairy Queen, To dew her orbs upon the green; The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours; In those freckles live their savours; I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Fairy / Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II Scene I

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Modesty (1752)

Antonio Corradini

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Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere yet to rest my head, Like these, on earth I wait forlorn. Their faith, my tears, the world deride— I come to shed them at their side.

Matthew Arnold, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse

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Dante and Beatrice (1883)

Henry Holiday

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The library, where tract and tome Not to feed priestly pride are there, To hymn the conquering march of Rome, Nor yet to amuse, as ours are! They paint of souls the inner strife, Their drops of blood, their death in life. ... Those halls, too, destined to contain Each its own pilgrim-host of old, From England, Germany, or Spain— All are before me! I behold The House, the Brotherhood austere! —And what am I, that I am here? For rigorous teachers seized my youth, And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire, Show'd me the high, white star of Truth, There bade me gaze, and there aspire. Even now their whispers pierce the gloom: What dost thou in this living tomb? Forgive me, masters of the mind! At whose behest I long ago So much unlearnt, so much resign'd— I come not here to be your foe! I seek these anchorites, not in ruth, To curse and to deny your truth; Not as their friend, or child, I speak! But as, on some far northern strand, Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek In pity and mournful awe might stand Before some fallen Runic stone— For both were faiths, and both are gone.

Matthew Arnold, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse

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Lady Godiva (1897)

John Collier

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The chapel, where no organ's peal Invests the stern and naked prayer— With penitential cries they kneel And wrestle; rising then, with bare And white uplifted faces stand, Passing the Host from hand to hand; Each takes, and then his visage wan Is buried in his cowl once more. The cells!—the suffering Son of Man Upon the wall—the knee-worn floor— And where they sleep, that wooden bed, Which shall their coffin be, when dead!

Matthew Arnold, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse

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Judith (c. 1504)

Giorgione

Then she pulled the head out of the bag and showed it to them, and said, ‘See here, the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, and here is the canopy beneath which he lay in his drunken stupor. The Lord has struck him down by the hand of a woman. As the Lord lives, who has protected me on the way I went, I swear that it was my face that seduced him to his destruction, and that he committed no sin with me, to defile and shame me.’

All the people were greatly astonished. They bowed down and worshipped God, and said with one accord, ‘Blessed are you our God, who have this day humiliated the enemies of your people.’

Then Uzziah said to her, ‘O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all other women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God, who created the heavens and the earth, who has guided you to cut off the head of the leader of our enemies. Your praise will never depart from the hearts of those who remember the power of God. May God grant this to be a perpetual honour to you, and may he reward you with blessings, because you risked your own life when our nation was brought low, and you averted our ruin, walking in the straight path before our God.’ And all the people said, ‘Amen. Amen.’

- Judith 13:15-20 [NRSVACE]

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As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage,    Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells —    That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age. Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage    Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,    Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage. Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest — Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest,    But his own nest, wild nest, no prison. Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best, But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed    For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Caged Skylark

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The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (c. 1601)

Carvaggio

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

- John 20:26-29 [NRSVACE]

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There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers On sunny days a moment overcast; And comes that other fall we name the fall. He says the highway dust is over all. The bird would cease and be as other birds But that he knows in singing not to sing. The question that he frames in all but words Is what to make of a diminished thing.

Robert Frost, The Oven Bird