R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 9

Green Henry

But the chief point was that he declared himself to be a scorner of women, and he waged continual war with them for trying, with their sensual allurement and their frivolity, to rob men of their virtue and their seriousness. As a Cynic, he was always pestering the women and girls with his unconventionalities; as an Epicurean, with erotic witticisms; and as a Stoic, he said rude things to them, but nevertheless, where three of them were gathered together, there he was always to be found.

Fom Paul Claudel

The "snippet" above is from the Poetry Foundation -- it's a beautiful fragment from a larger work (a play I think) by Paul Claudel (brother of Camille). I found more of the poem on the website below:

https://mycarmelblog.wordpress.com/20...

Green Henry

Suddenly there was a sound of humming and piping overhead. Fiddle, bass viol, clarinet were being tuned, and a French horn was indulging in melancholy sounds. While the active portion of the assembly broke up and went upstairs to the spacious loft, the schoolmaster said: ‘Is there really to be dancing? I thought this custom had at last been done away with. Certainly this village is the only one for far and wide where it is ever practised! I honour age, but all that is old is not necessarily honourable and fitting! Meantime, you may as well look on, children, so that later on you can tell about it, for it is to be hoped that dancing at funeral rites will eventually be abolished!’

Green Henry

‘That’s not so,’ asserted Catherine. ‘You owe Henry a kiss, you witch!’ ‘Oh, for shame, Catherine! You shouldn’t tell such stories,’ said the embarrassed child, and the inexorable maid replied: ‘That’s as it may be, the hill fell down before you had turned round three times, and you owe Master Henry a kiss!’ ‘Then I will go on owing it,’ she cried laughing, and I, glad to have escaped the solemn ceremony, and yet turning the matter to my own advantage, said: ‘Good. Then promise me that you will always go on owing me a kiss!’ ‘Yes, I’ll do that!’ cried she, and gaily and mischievously, she gave the hand I proffered a resounding slap. She was now lively and boisterous, and as nimble as quicksilver, seemingly quite a different person from what she was by day. Midnight had transfigured her, her little face was quite rosy and her eyes shone with pleasure. She danced round the helpless Catherine, teased her and was pursued by her, there began a chase round the room in which I became involved too. Old Catherine lost a shoe and withdrew, panting, but Anna grew wilder and wilder, and more and more agile. At last I caught her and held her fast. Without more ado, she put her arm round my neck, her mouth close to mine, and said softly, interrupted by quick gasps for breath: ‘A wee white mouse was dwelling In her little hillside house; The hill began to crumble, Out ran the little mouse.’ Whereupon I continued in the same strain: ‘The little mouse was running, They caught it as it fled, And round its tiny forepaw They bound a ribbon red.’ Then we recited together in the same rhythm, rocking quietly backwards and forwards: ‘It struggled and lamented, What mischief did I do? They took a golden arrow And pierced its heart right through.’ And when the song came to an end, our lips were close together without moving; we did not kiss each other, and we never thought of it, only our breath mingled as we stood on that new, as yet uncrossed bridge, and our hearts were glad and untroubled.

Green Henry

Now we stood upon the brow of the hill which shimmered in the splendour of the setting sun; the glorified figure, light as down, of the young girl floated before my eyes, and near her I thought I saw the smiling countenance of the Almighty, the friend and protector of the landscape painter, as in my conversation today with the schoolmaster, I had claimed Him to be. When she was saying goodbye, Anna blushed deeper still in the light of the setting sun as she held out her hand to me, last of all. We barely touched fingertips, and addressed each other politely as ‘Sie’; but the boys laughed at us, and the girls gravely requested that we should say ‘Du’ to one another, for nothing else was tolerated among the young people in the country.

Lazuli Bunting @ Bartlett Park

Lazuli Bunting @ Bartlett Park in Huntington Beach CA. Never saw as many LBs in one place, but of course getting close is another story. Still: just being with them was euphoric.;)🩵🩵🩵

#rlswihart

#socal

#huntingtonbeach

#bartlettpark

#buntingsofinstagram 

#indigobunting

#nature 

#beauty

#poetry

#readmorepoetry2025💗🇺🇦

Tertullian and Montanists

Clip:

In Africa there was a lot of interest in the new prophecy, and Tertullian came to believe that it was genuine, accordingly mentioning it and defending it strongly in his later works.  Unfortunately his work in defence of it, De ecstasi, in 7 books is lost. Tertullian fiercely attacks those who condemned the new prophecy, and in attacking the church authorities as more interested in their own political power in the church than in listening to the Spirit, he foreshadows the protestant reaction to papal claims.

Link:

https://www.tertullian.org/montanism.htm

Gila Woodpecker (Female)

 

Green Henry

Another fruitful source of strange tales was Roman Catholicism, with its legacy of deserted cloisters and the still surviving monasteries which were to be found here and there in the region that was still Catholic. To these tales the members of the orders inhabiting these monasteries contributed much, especially the Capuchin monks who to this day work hand in hand with the executioners in the exorcizing of devils, and in other such arts, among the superstitious peasants of the reformed faith. In a few remote districts at that time, there prevailed a spiritless, decayed type of Protestantism; the inhabitants did not hold themselves above the Catholics, looking down on them as deluded folk, but they faithfully shared their belief in all the fables, though they held them to be in substance evil and deserving of repudiation, and they did not laugh at Catholicism, rather they feared it as something sinister and heathenish. It was impossible for them to recognize a free thinker as a man who in his inmost heart really believes nothing at all, and they were just as little able to conceive of anyone believing too much; their limit simply was that they would hold only to those doctrines that were good, and not to the evil.

Gottfried Keller's Green Heinrich (Henry)

A man always sets a double value on what Fate has deprived him of, and so my mother’s long tales used to fill me more and more with longing for the father who died before I knew him. My clearest recollection of him goes back, curiously, a full year before his death, to a single lovely moment when he carried me on his arm, one Sunday evening in the fields, pulled a potato plant out of the earth and showed me the little swelling tubers, already trying to awaken in me the knowledge and love of the Creator. I still see the green coat and the bright metal buttons close to my cheek, and his shining eyes which attracted my wondering gaze away from the green plant that he was holding aloft.