Forgotten Mermen

Julián Is a Mermaid
by Jessica Love

Reading this sweet story of a boy who creates his own mermaid outfit for the costume party reminded me of these Victorian poems that I had not thought about in many years:

1. First, Tennyson's companion poems of the pensive mermaid and merry merman:

The Mermaid

I.
Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II.
I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
Who is it loves me? who loves not me?
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound,
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall.

Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

III.
But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call, and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list,
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea;
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea;
Then all the dry pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.

AND

The Merman

Who would be
A merman bold,
Sitting alone,
Singing alone
Under the sea,
With a crown of gold,
On a throne?

I would be a merman bold,
I would sit and sing the whole of the day;
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power;
But at night I would roam abroad and play
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;
And holding them back by their flowing locks
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
Laughingly, laughingly;
And then we would wander away, away,
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,
Chasing each other merrily.

There would be neither moon nor star;
But the wave would make music above us afar —
Low thunder and light in the magic night —
Neither moon nor star.
We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,
Call to each other and whoop and cry
All night, merrily, merrily;
They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells,
Laughing and clapping their hands between,
All night, merrily, merrily,
But I would throw to them back in mine
Turkis and agate and almondine;
Then leaping out upon them unseen
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
Laughingly, laughingly.
Oh! what a happy life were mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green!
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;
We would live merrily, merrily.

both by Alfred Lord Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892)

Illustrations by Eric Kincaid

2. Second, Arnold's sad tale of the merman bereft of mortal love:

The Forsaken Merman

Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go—
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;

Children's voices, wild with pain—
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
"Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret."
Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at the white-wall'd town
And the little grey church on the windy shore,
Then come down!
She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;
She said: "I must go, to my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
'T will be Easter-time in the world—ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."
I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, were we long alone?
"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say;
Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town;
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little grey church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down!
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessed light of the sun!"
And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully,
Till the spindle drops from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh;
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden
And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away children
Come children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows coldly;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
Singing: "Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr'd with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch'd sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side—
And then come back down.
Singing: "There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea."

Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888)

Beyond the little mermaid . . .

~ Medieval MerPeople ~
Mermaid & Merman

Books With Ellie

One of Ben & Sam's childhood favorites,
now passed on to Ellie, Aidan, and Dean.
Includes "The Highwayman,"
"The Mermaid" & "The Merman"

You just never know when an amazing readerly moment is going to come along and melt your heart or take your breath away. Not long ago, as I was reading with Ellie, now 4 1/2, from an illustrated book of poetry (Eugene Field, Christina Rossetti, Walt Whitman, etc.), she stopped me to say, in a kind of detached dreamy way, "It's really nice isn't it?"

I thought she meant the artwork and started to comment on some colorful details bordering the edge of each page, but she held up her hand and pressed her palm right in the middle of the text and said, "No, I mean this. What makes it so nice?"

I had mistakenly assumed that she was just daydreaming about the pictures while I was basically reading aloud to myself; but, in fact, without any pointers or tutorials, she was grasping the concept of poetry and writing of quality.

Around the same time, I was writing about the concept of ut pictura poesis (on my Quotidian blog) and thinking about the related argument that painting takes precedence over poetry (but does it?) because we value sight over hearing. On the contrary, Ellie bypassed the visual and knew instinctively that she was hearing something "really nice." So intriguing -- both her appreciation of poetic verse and also her palpable gesture of reaching out to touch the words!

Ellie is also a fan of library storybooks, many of which contain their own subtle literary motifs. The other day we were reading a couple of her favorite books, both by the same author, one featuring a pig who likes to read -- that would be The Book Hog (2019) -- and the other one featuring a crocodile who likes watermelon but fears The Watermelon Seed (2013).

More about Greg Pizzoli

Ellie pointed out to me that when the Book Hog goes to the library, he picks The Watermelon Seed for Show & Tell! Naturally, I took a moment to explain to her about intertextual puns and mise en abyme.

A few nights later, in a completely different book, a character had taken a grocery cart to the library. I said, “like the crocodile who wants to check out all the books.”

Ellie said, “I think you mean the Book Hog, Amma, not the crocodile.”

She's always one step ahead! Nearly ready for kindergarten -- or should I say grad school!

Talking About Things That Matter

"The what - ifs were taking control of her mind." (432)
More on Facebook & OK
Written in 2011 and set in 1998 or so, Visiting Brooklyn reads like an episode of West Wing (which ran from 1999 - 2006). But I'd say, even more timely, pre-figuring the political discourse of 2025.

Don't be offended by the W-word; just enjoy the sardonic humor:

"Patrick Connor was not a member of the press or a politician. He was a political consultant and lobbyist, a 'whore maker.' He took somewhat normal people and turned them into political candidates who ran for office, and often with his help they won congressional seats. On occasion, he helped Senate candidates be elected, though he preferred members of Congress because there were 436 of them, and they ran for office every two years.

"He called himself a whore - maker because that was what polticians became once they were elected. If they wished to be re - elected, they had to whore themselves out to various special interest groups. Special interest groups liked whores and paid them well to be good boys and girls and vote their way; and as whore makers see it, they get into bed with them.

"Patrick preferred working with the Democratic whores because his level guilt was less, though he had worked both sides of the aisle. Usually Republican whores had more money to spend, but the Democratic whores were better at parties. It really did not matter any more to him because after hanging out with the whores for so long, you became a whore yourself." (2)

When Patrick strikes up a relationship with an athletic trainer / medical doctor from Russia, they struggle at first to find a balance of acceptable conversational topics:

"Americans are very sensitive about their height, weight drinking and clothing size. So when you mention they have problems, the first thing they want to do is deny it, to say they don't have those problems. Denial is very much a part of the American character. (136)

" . . . like most Americans, the first thing they asked you were personal questions about yourself. Where do you work? What do you do for a living? Why not ask about books, plays, ballets, or poems? Why did Americans seem so preoccupied by the work they did?" (149)

Being truthful doesn't always come easy for Patrick. As he admits earlier in the novel, "he never really talked to anyone about anything that mattered" (37) Yet he finally settles upon a topic of interest to share with his new friend:

" . . . if I tell you about my life it will sound like a lie, but fortunately or unfortunately, it's true; it's too crazy to lie about. . . . She wanted to know about St. Louis and Brooklyn . . . about growing up in Brooklyn. Where would he start? Where would he finish?" (170 - 172)

Luckily for the reader, we get to hear this story too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meeting up with the author at a recent school reunion.

Do You Like Sentences?

But there was winter in my heart
and I was looking for the door to summer

Robert Heinlein

~~~~~~~~~~

Where My Books Go

All the words that I gather,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm darkened or starry bright.”

W. B. Yeats

~~~~~~~~~~

Annie Dillard: In her book The Writing Life (1989),
she tells the story of a fellow writer who was asked
by a student, “Do you think I could be a writer?”

“Well," the writer said, "do you like sentences?"*

~~~~~~~~~~

Hemingway "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer." ~from A Letter from Cuba


Salinger: “What I like best is a book that’s at least funny once in a while. . . . What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”

“If we address stories as archaeological sites,
and dust through their layers with meticulous care,
we find at some level there is always a doorway.
A dividing point between here and there,
us and them, mundane and magical.
It is at the moments when the doors open,
when things flow between the worlds,
that stories happen.” (2)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January
by Alix E. Harrow

*“Oh, for Christ’s sake, one doesn’t study poets!
You read them, and think, That’s marvelous, how is it done,
could I do it? and that’s how you learn.”
Philip Larkin
[see also: "Belief, Superstition, Disbelief"]

In Art As It Is In Heaven

"They might, without sacrilege,
have changed the prayer a little and said,
'Thy will be done in art, as it is in heaven.'
How can it be done anywhere else as it is in heaven?"

~ Willa Cather ~
from her novel The Professor's House (p 57)

Two views of
Harold Gilman's House at Letchworth, Hertfordshire (1912)

The house of artist Harold John Wilde Gilman (1876 – 1919)
Painted by Spencer Frederick Gore (1878 – 1914)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recent Reading

1. The Professor's House
by Willa Cather

So many engaging themes in this novel: a lovely old house, a grand new house, a mid-life crisis, sibling rivalry, academic cynicism, beautiful Lake Michigan, bustling Chicago, bureaucratic Washington DC, and of course the wild wild west:

"Wherever humanity has made that hardest of all starts and lifted itself out of mere brutality, is a sacred spot. . . . with no incentive but some natural yearning for order and security. They built themelves into this mesa and humanized it" (199).

"Lillian's prejudices, her divinations about people and art (always instinctive and unexplained, but nearly always right), were the most interesting things in St. Peter's life" (38). [See Hamnet and Mary Rose below.]

2. The Thursday Murder Club
by Richard Osman

This novel has so many fun lines and observations, but for right now, I'll start with this one: "In life you have to learn to count the good days. You have to tuck them in your pocket and carry them around with you. So I'm putting today in my pocket and I'm off to bed" (88).

"The gang has all gone now. Two cancers and a stroke. We hadn't known that Jersey Boys would be our last trip. You always know when it's your first time, don't you? But you rarely know when it's your final time" (85).
[See Mary Rose, below. See also Tears & Longly.]

As for loved ones who are fading away: "Can he feel it? Does Penny hear her? Have they both already disappeared? Or are they only real for as long as she chooses to believe they're real? Elizabeth clings on a little tighter and holds on to the day for as long as she is able. . . . Everyone has to leave the game. Once you're in, there is no other door but the exit" (148, 369).

The setting is Coopers Chase Retirement Village, where life is neither miserly nor miserable. A refreshing change from the typical cliche that assisted living is to be avoided at all costs, as in . . .

3. Remarkably Brilliant Creatures
by Shelby Van Pelt

As occurs so often in books and on TV (and in real life), Tova’s friends personify a pronounced anti-assisted living bias and glorification of adults who are willing to live with their elderly parents. Why is the popular media so keen to guilt anyone who does not jump on the sacrificial bandwagon? (For a delightful exception, see above!)

If you're a fan of SeaWorld and love a good coincidence, this is the novel for you! I kept thinking of George Saunders: "Now a coincidence is all right, life is full of them, but a reader's willingness to ingest one is inversely related to how badly the writer needs one . . . "
~from his essay "The United State of Huck" (201)

Spoiler alert: In spite of myself, I like the way it all came together at the end, except I was sad that Tova moved into a new condo instead of keeping the old homestead for her newfound grandson Cameron.

Teen pregnancy may be on the decline, but not in this novel, with three separate subplots revolving around teen pregnancy! Really? Reminded me of some throwbacks to the 1970’s: Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones and The Girls of Huntington House; and more recently Juno (2007) -- all overly optimistic.

4. Hamnet
by Maggie O'Farrell

Anne Hathaway's first impressions of William Shakespeare:
"That you had more hidden away inside you than anyone else she'd ever met. . . . She is rarely wrong. About anything. It's a gift or a curse, depending on who you ask. So if she thinks that about you, there's a possibility it's true" (137).
[See The Professor's House, above; and Mary Rose, below.]

And William loves Anne [referred to in the novel as "Agnès"] because "you see the world as no one else does" (115).

His fascination with her falcon mirrors his enchantment with Anne herself: "It seems extraordinary to him to be in such close proximity to a creature which is so emphatically from another element, from wind or sky or perhaps even myth" (35).

Thinking of deceased children: "How frail . . . is the veil between their world and hers" (108).

5. The Ten Thousand Doors of January
by Alix E. Harrow

29, 31: "It's stupid to think things like that. It just gives you this hollow, achy feeling between your ribs, like you're homesick even though you're already home, and you can't read your magazine anymore because the words are all warped and watery looking. . . . I didn't say anything because then I would cry and everything would be even worse."
[See also: in comments]

Thanks to my friend Katie who knows how to
judge a book by both its contents AND its cover!

6. Winter Street
by Elin Hilderbrand

A fun connection: Mitzi's favorite Christmas ornaments are "a fancy fur-clad shopper and a dapper doorman by Soffieria De Carlini" (35).

Guess what -- I have a couple of them! Before going on our treetop, they were on our wedding cake!

7. In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
by Bette Bao Lord

8. Oh William!
by Elizabeth Strout
[See also: in comments]

9. The Time of Green Magic
by Hilary McKay

Another wacky lovable family (like the Cassons & the Conroys). Abi, Max, and Louis -- living in a big magical house, working together as sibs, dealing with family tensions, and facing their fears (remember Indigo?) real and imagined: "Iffen is real!" (182). From whence came the magic? "It came out of books" (229).

10. Mary Rose
by J. M. Barrie

A text of continued surprises, a gentle ghost story, time - travel and loss: ". . . being a ghost is worse than seeing them" (75).

9, 67: "The pictures on her walls in time take on a resemblance to her or hers though they may be meant to represent a waterfall, every present given to her assumes soome characteristic of the donor, and no doubt the necktie she is at present knitting will soon be able to pass as the person for whom it is being knit. It is only delightful ladies at the most agreeale age who have this personal way with their belongings. . . . I have been so occupied all my life with little things -- very pleasant."

32: "I know I'm not clever, but I'm always right."
[See The Professor's House and Hamnet, above.]

47: "Let me tell you . . . there will be a lat time of seeing your baby . . . I mean that he can't always be infantile; but the day after you have seen him for the last time as a baby you will see him for the first time as a little gentleman. Think of that. . . . Don't you think the sad thing is that we seldom know when the last time has come? We could make so much more of it."
[See Thursday Murder Club, above.]

56, 57: "I can see the twilight running across the fields. . . . happiness keeps breaking through."

65, 70: "It is the years. . . . there are worse things than not finding what you are looking for; there is finding them so different from what you had hoped."

11. The House in the Pines
by Ana Reyes

Not to be confused with "Three Pines" or "Twin Peaks." Murder by hypnosis, mesmerism, levitation, and so forth. Somewhere in the woods.

Small Sweet Tangible Things

A Rebirth of Wonder

Children are us, three-to-eight decades ago, before we became so bewildered by the realities of this world that we simply stopped looking at them.

We often count on children to be the court jesters of our lives. They say adorable things and have no idea how funny they are. . . . Yet these are actual human beings. And they are coming to see the world as it really is. Which is an exacting and terrifying experience. . . .

People sometimes . . . approach small children as miniature gurus. They imply that children can tell us the answers to the world's problems if we just get on their level and listen. We hear that children will be the ones to save us from cancer, racism, and global warming.

Of course, this is a lot to ask of them. Especially in a world marked by so much hopelessness and strife. Children will lead us in the next world because, God willing, they will not have been disillusioned by this one yet. They will remind us of a time when the small, sweet tangible things still meant something. They will ask us to go back to that moment when we felt safe.

Sarah Condon
from her book Churchy (121 - 123; see also)

♥♥♥
A real - life example from my grandson:

On Valentine's Day, I picked up Ellie (4) and Aidan (2) from pre - K, and as soon as they got home they were having so much fun looking at everything in their Valentine bags. Aidan was holding up a card, as if he were reading it, and I asked him “what does it say?”

His answer: “It says ‘I love you Aidan.’”

THAT safe!
♥

Getting Through January

Find a sunny spot!

Reading by the Bookshelf ~ Fadeaway Girl, 1915
by Clarence Coles Phillips, 1880 - 1927
Look!
~ Someone filled the dress in! ~

Read to a child!

Mother and Child Reading aka Nursery Rhymes, 1896
by Frederick Warren Freer, 1849 - 1908

Tell some ghost stories!

The Rising Generation ~ Illustration for Rip Van Winkle
by Arthur Rackham, 1867 1939

Scare yourself silly!

Crime Fiction Reader
in Fliegende Blätter magazine March 1933
by Martin Claus, 1892–1975

Find your true calling & live the dream!

Literary Salon: A Reading of Molière, ca 1728
by Jean François de Troy, 1679 - 1752

Stop by the bookstore!

Above & below, postcards from

Powell's City of Books ~ Portland, Oregon

Hello From Portland!

"That bookstore is like a church to me, thought Erikka: words to listen to and think about, music sometimes to push the words towards other and grander meanings, friends to smile at and feel comfortable with, and all of that somehow adding together, making a total feeling that was larger than the good feelings of the separate parts." (29)

from The Daughter of the Moon*
by Gregory Maguire (b. 1954)

More bookstores like churches:
The Last Bookaneer
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
The Little Paris Bookshop

P.S. *Another favorite line from
The Daughter of the Moon

"What's a blue blood?" asked Erikka?
"Someone who comes from a long and distinguished line,"
said Kristina.
"A long and distinguished line of what?" (145)