Henry Fitz Lane - Brace's Rock Eastern Point, Henry Purcell - Chaconcy in G Minor, Rose Fyleman - Very Lovely, John Keats - On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

It's the end of June and the last week of our current studies....  I'm thinking of taking a few weeks off from planning the blog, but if you want to continue these studies there are wonderful artists, composers and poets to meet in the archives.  You can type a name into the search box to the right or browse back through older posts and see what appeals to you.  Blessings on your Summer.... 

Brace's Rock Eastern Point

At first look this painting by Henry Fitz Lane may not seem very exciting - the colors and sky aren't nearly as dramatic and colorful as some of his paintings.  But I like the gentle peace that it invokes.  I like the rock in the center reflected in the calm water and the circular ripples in the foreground and his typical depiction of foliage which looks almost like folk art in the foreground of the painting.  Of course the old boat is interesting, too.  So I hope your children will have fun narrating this painting. 

Henry Purcell - Chaconcy in G minor

A final poem by Rose Fyleman as usual filled with imagination-

        VERY LOVELY
Wouldn't it be lovely if the rain came down
Till the water was quite high over all the town?
If the cabs and buses all were set afloat,
And we had to go to school in a little boat?

Wouldn't it be lovely if it still should pour
And we all went up to live on the second floor?
If we saw the butcher sailing up the hill,
And we took the letters in at the window sill?

It's been raining, raining, all the afternoon;
All these things might happen really very soon.
If we woke to-morrow and found they had begun,
Wouldn't it be glorious?  Wouldn't it be fun?

And finally John Keats - as always his imminent death colors and sobers his thinking.

      On Seeing the Elgin Marbles 

My spirit is too weak; mortality
   Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
   And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
   Yet 'tis a gentle luxuray to weep,
   That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
   Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
   That mingles Grecian grandeur with theh rude
Wasting of old Time--with a billowy main,
   A sun, a shadow of a magnitude.

Wikipedia's article on the Elgin Marbles explains a bit more about what they are and their current ownership.  What do you think would be a just solution?