The World Was Warm and White When I Was Born

(The Roofs of Paris, by Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890,
Dutch Post-Impressionist painter)

To mark my birthday today, I’ve chosen one of my favorite images of Paris, the city where I was born. Van Gogh painted it three years before the installation of the Eiffel Tower in 1889.

THE WORLD WAS WARM AND WHITE WHEN I WAS BORN

The world was warm and white when I was born:
Beyond the windowpane the world was white,
A glaring whiteness in a leaded frame,
Yet warm as in the hearth and heart of light.
Although the whiteness was almond and was bone
In midnight’s still paralysis, nevertheless
The world was warm and hope was infinite
All things would come, fulfilled, all things would be known
All things would be enjoyed, fulfilled, and come to be my own.

How like a summer the years of youth have passed!
— How like the summer of 1914, in all truth! —
Patience, my soul, the truth is never known
Until the future has become the past
And then, only, when the love of truth at last
Becomes the truth of love, when both are one,
Then, then, then, Eden becomes Utopia and is surpassed:
For then the dream of knowledge and knowledge knows
Motive and joy at once wherever it goes.

~ Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966), American poet and writer of short stories

In the Green Morning, Now, Once More

(Advertisement for my favorite fragrance,
Muguet des Bois or lily of the valley
perfume by Coty, published in 1948)

“And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes like the warbling of music), than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do perfume the air.”

~ Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, and statesman

IN THE GREEN MORNING, NOW, ONCE MORE

In the green morning, before
Love was destiny,
The sun was king,
And God was famous.

The merry, the musical,
The jolly, the magical,
The feast, the feast of feasts, the festival
Suddenly ended
As the sky descended
But there was only the feeling,
In all the dark falling,
Of fragrance and of freshness, of birth and beginning.

~ Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966), American poet and writer of short stories

Is It the Morning? Is It the Little Morning?

(Sunrise, Yosemite Valley, 1865 by Albert Bierstadt,
1830-1902, German-born American painter)

“O what a beautiful morning, / O what a beautiful day, / I’ve got a wonderful feeling, / Everything’s going my way,” sang Gordon MacRae (1921-1986) in the musical Oklahoma.

IS IT THE MORNING?
IS IT THE LITTLE MORNING?

Is it morning? Is it the little morning
Just before dawn? How big the sun is!
Are those the birds? Their voices begin
Everywhere, whistling, piercing, and joyous
All over and in the air, speaking the words
Which are more than words, with mounting consciousness:
And everything begins to rise to the brightening
Of the slow light that ascends to the blaze’s lightning!

~ Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966), American poet