Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 -- Brahms

This is the last of Brahms' symphonies. Brahms began working on the piece in 1884, just a year after finishing his Symphony No. 3, and completed it in 1885.

To be fair, I haven't listened to much of Brahms. Each movement in this symphony flows seamlessly from one mood and image to another; it breathes, it almost sighs. It queries, it protests, it exclaims, and it laughs, all the while lilting up and down in a graceful but simple call-and-answer melody with wonderful dynamics—and the very rare chaconne, a characteristically Baroque composition.

In My Craft or Sullen Art -- Dylan Thomas

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

Image Credit: Christ in the House of His Parents, John Everett Millais controversial depiction of Jesus in the carpentry workshop of Joseph.

Blackberrying -- Plath

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks ---
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.
The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.


Image Credit: Nude in Sunlight by Renoir

The Red Blue Chair -- Reitveld

Originally painted in just black and white, but later re-painted to synchronize with the style of Piet Mondrian. Along with Mondrian, Reitveld was at the forefront of the De Stijl movement, which manifested itself in furniture, painting (below), and architecture.

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space -- Boccioni

Part of a movement known as Futurism which emphasized speed, motion and power in the context of the modern world. Also check out Dynamism of the Dog by Balla

The Village Blacksmith -- Longfellow

Under a spreading chestnut tree

The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

FUN FACT: In the dystopian novel '1984' by Eric Blair , one location featured is the Chestnut Tree Cafe called the "haunt of painters and musicians. There was no law, not even an unwritten law, against frequenting the Chestnut Tree Cafe, yet the place was somehow ill-omened."
There is a rhyme about the cafe that re-occurs throughout the book:

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree

This is considered to be a translation of Longfellow's Poem into Newspeak, the invented language of the novel which is meant to reduce extraneous thought and subtly censor rebellion so that no one could possibly produce a thought diverging from the principles of 'Ingsoc' or English Socialism. It is related to the very, very interesting Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which you should read about when time permits you.
Image Credit: 'Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan' by Diego Vélasquez

Haiku

I'm a wanderer,

so let that be my name-

the first winter rain

-Matsuo Basho

(pictured above: Modern Genji: Viewing in Snow by Utagawa Kunisada and Utagawa Hiroshige)

Burial of Atala -- Gerodet