detail from The Adoration of the Magi tapestry by Edwin Burne-Jones, Wllliam Morris & John Dearle
The Gifts of the Magi
The Magi came to Bethlehem As guided by a rising star, And there a newborn greeted them Beyond the busy brisk bazaar. So three wise men each bore a gift – The other nine just looked-on, miffed.
The first brought gold – a solid lump – An ingot, so the paintings show. That must have made young Mary jump As Caspar flashed his gift aglow. But prizes prising gasps aghast Should surely be withheld till last.
Then Melchior with frankincense To sweetly burn at times of prayer – The sort of thing we all dispense, To hosts and strangers ev’rywhere. Safe and useful, just the thing To give to clients, in-laws, kings.
And finally there came the myrrh – Embalming oil for the dead. A tactless gift to give, for sure, That only brings a parent dread. Poor Balthazar had left them cold – And wished he’d also thought of gold !
The first discarded tree on the pavement, The first house not to turn on its lights, The first fallen card not to be re-hung And we still haven’t reached Twelfth Night. Yet the Tudors partied the dozen-long, But we’re back to work by the Second of Jan – Once New Year’s hit, we’re done with it, We’ve season’s-cheered as much as we can. But the Magi had to go the long way – A little less gold, woulda made it in a week ! I don’t think our waistlines will last to Epiphany, This really is no season for the meek…
To a gentleman of mechanistic means, Who loves to read and read about ingenious machines: I bring you word of piston, crank and drum – And not just once or twice, but for a dozen times to come.
And I’m never gonna smoke again – I’m gonna be a Mormon, or a rescued beagle, No more roll-ups, as high as an eagle, Till the wheezes, the hacks and the rasps have taken the hint – I’m gonna survive on placebo patches and mints, Till I can’t stand the pain.
And I’m never gonna drink again – I’m gonna be Methodist, or a prude, Resisting the caffeinated and brewed, Till the migraines, the slurs and the shakes have loosened the strap – I’m gonna survive on organic smoothies and tap, Till I can’t stand the pain.
And I’m never gonna eat again – I’m gonna be a model, or maybe a monk, Working out the body and cutting out the junk, Till the ounces, the pound and the stones have fallen away – I’m gonna survive on wholemeal carrots and hay, Till I can’t stand the pain.
Nothing happened, and ev’rybody laughed The calendar had clicked all four digits over With not a single meltdown or mem’ry overdraft Indeed, the new Millennium was very much in clover We ridiculed the doomsayers, tarred and feathered verbally, And claimed we’d never for a second fallen for their con – Our tech was indestructible, whatever their hyperbole, And got on with our daily lives as if the sun still shone. And the calendars clocked, and on we went, All thanks to the graft of the geeks we smear – The lack of excitement their greatest testament. We’re welcome. Happy new year.
Well, that’s another year gone by, So chalk him up and write him down, The first and last, the low and high – He’ll have to earn his own renown. So many births, so many deaths, And passing thoughts and careless breaths.
He’s faded from the deadlines And he’s faded into yesterday By chart and stat and trend. He leaves a little wiser, If a little scarred and greyer, In the end.
Then in the ledgers he’ll remain, In fact and myth, in curse and grace. We won’t be seeing him again, He had his chance, he ran his race. He spun us once around the sun, And we went on, but he was done.
He’s fallen from the calendar, And fallen into memory – A half-neglected friend. So many urgent choices, So important, so forgotten, In the end.
Some folks say that the decades run From one to oh. You know, cos there was no Year Zero and all Oh, how they made the wrong call. They assume we give a toss About the loss of a year. Oh dear oh dear. Listen, all you smug alecs, Fetishising factoids from the abstract void Of cleverer-than-you. Speaking in italics with mouths askew, While ignoring common sense – Stop classifying speech by pounds and pence ! For the only thing that matters by far Are the numbers on the calendar.
detail from The Bower Meadow by Dante Rossetti, Apple Blossoms by John Millais, Hylas & The Nymphs by John Waterhouse, Laus Veneris by Edward Burne-Jones and The School of Nature by William Holman-Hunt
The Clone of Beauty
So why did the Pre-Raphaelites have just the single face to paint ? Did they all maybe share a model, or ideal, or a joke ? Or were they merely moral allegories, underneath the quaint, The playthings of a puritanic club of touched and airy folk ? Their lounging nymphs of languid myth are diaphanous deities, Sometimes naked, always perfect, from Pompeii to Camelot – But rousing such lacklustre lust, or any spontaneities, These strangely-sexless sextuplets are gazed upon to be forgot.
These muses with the single face, And even fewer flickers of emotion in their artful grace, Demanding our devotion as they pose from Albion to Thrace. Androgynous, without a trace of cleavage, Under wafting folds of lace, But then again, their cold embrace has little use for heavage. At least their hair is big and wild, Those flowing waves and ringlets piled in unexpected verve, Quite out of place around a mask so English in reserve. This Sisterhood of sylvan sylphs – In pastels, spotless-clean and bright, All bathed within a golden light – Are quite the finer sort of elves, Perhaps the fairest of the fay, Just waiting for a errant knight or shepherd boy to pass their way.
Or maybe just ourselves, The gawpers in the gallery – The hoi-polloi who shrug and stare, And wonder why they have to share A single personality.
I wrote this some years ago but dug it out after visiting the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I had always assumed that the painters made all the faces the same in search of an shared ideal of beauty, but I now suspect that the similarities were in the flesh rather than the paint – the women they chose as models already looked alike. They also shared their models around, in every sense, and I don’t think these women did any modelling for more establishment artists. That said, they don’t seem to have gone out of their way to show much nuance.
Now, we just need a good investigation about the male models they used…
Pass another mince pie, then, And oh, another tot ? Why not ! Now don’t hold back, I’ll tell you ‘when’, Is this the only one we’ve got ? I’ve plenty others, I could swear, At least a dozen…Gone, you say ? Ah well, I’m sure I had my share When you came round the other day… But no, of late I haven’t written much, Who wants that slog ? I’m not concerned I’ve lost my touch – They’ll flow again, just like this grog… I say, this is a cosy time, A cosy time, I always say, Who cares about the bloody rhyme ? I’ll write some verse another day. Def’nitely, though, come next year, Give or take a month or two, But well before the Spring is here I’ll knuckle down to something new: Sonnets, ballads, villanelles I’ll drink to that ! Hang on, I’m dry – Here, fill me up, a double Bells, And ooh, is that a mincemeat pie…?
