So Many More Geese Girls

by Walter Crane ~ A Goose Girl

by Mercer Mayer ~ hard to find

by Jessie Wilcox Smith ~ Goose Girl

For more paintings & poetry
on this magical theme
see my recent post

"Geese Girls"
@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker

Blue Willow Breakfast

Illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1863 - 1935

Blue Willow
My fate might not have been the dreamer's,
No time for prose and all for froth,
If the ware had not been old blue willow
From which I supped my daily broth!

A child, I lived the quaint tradition,
I was the Chinese maid, Kong Shee,
Flitting the bridge with Chang, the lover,
From the convent house by the willow tree.

I drained my mug at every serving
To rid it of its milky sea
And bring to light a gull still sailing
Above the swaying willow tree!

A whimsy thought but one for toying,
For who has power to estimate
The end of a young poetic fancy
When nurtured from a willow plate?

poem by Mildred D. Shacklett

New Fortnightly Post
~ That Old Blue Willow Has Me In Its Spell ~


On The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony

Prayers for Custom and Ceremony

Autumn Leaves
by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1863 - 1935
American illustrator of magazines and children's books
NEW POST TODAY ON
THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER:
LITERARY BLOG OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE
"A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS"
As you may have heard me say before, the inspiration for designing my Fortnightly blog came from two writers: Goethe, who hopes that each day might include a song, a poem, some fine art, a few wise words; and Yeats who describes "a house where all's accustomed, ceremonious." This poem, particularly the closing, has been a favorite of mine for many years, decades:

Prayer For My Daughter
Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

[emphasis added above]

William Butler Yeats, 1865 - 1939
Irish poet and dramatist
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1923

CLICK TO READ MORE FAMILY PRAYERS
& SEE MORE PRINTS BY JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH
"A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS"