D.M. Denton's Blog

‘Arthur’s Tomb’, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1860 | TateDante Gabriel Rossetti, painter, poet, a founder of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, died in Birchington-on-Sea, Kent on April 17, 1882.

Reverend Alcott came once more and asked to pray with Gabriel alone.
     Christina felt the painful joy, as no doubt Mama did, when he revealed Gabriel had affirmed a simple trust in God and the Savior.

Stop-and there’s an end, and matters mend.

     “Thank you, Rector. I fear we will be needing you again.” Mama followed him down the long hall, their quiet conversation not one Christina wanted to overhear anyway.
     “Take supper with me, Chrissy,” William proposed before she went back into Gabriel’s room. “Then you should rest as I will. Mama said she would sit until ten when I will have my turn. Yours will begin at two.”|
     “I’m not hungry. When Mama gets back, I’ll lie down, although I’m afraid to.”    
     William nodded and solemnly walked away from her inclination to embrace him. Out of reach, he stopped and turned. “Lucy is coming, all the way from Manchester where she was visiting her father. She should be here by nine-thirty or ten o’clock.”
      Gabriel was either falling asleep or trying to stay awake, his eyelids quivering to open or close. Noticing the evening light was withdrawing even sooner because of the awning, Christina went to the window to close the curtains, but was otherwise engaged when she saw the white-robed, ochre-haloed sun going down beyond Minnis Bay, sinking into the promise of a beautiful day to come. 

The sun had stooped to earth though once so high;
Had stooped to earth, in slow
Warm dying loveliness brought near and low.

     “Oh, Gabe. I must get you up to see this sunset.” It was a ridiculous notion she didn’t even try to carry out.
     “Come here.” Gabriel already sounded like a ghost, although his left hand lived again, long enough to move towards hers and clasp it. “I’m sure it is beautiful.”

***
     “I’m glad I lived,” he saved to say to their mother.
     After a lifetime of spontaneous living, it seemed he was prepared to die.

from The Dove Upon Her Branch, a Novel Portrait of Christina Rossetti

English poet, Pre-Raphaelite painter and translator Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882)
(Photo by Lewis Carroll/Spencer Arnold/Getty Images)

This novelized account of the life of the English poet Christina Rossetti takes the reader deep into the heart of the fascinating and remarkably gifted Rossetti family. We also encounter the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, co-founded by Christina’s mercurial brother, Dante Gabriel, as flawed as he is gifted. The lively depictions of Christina’s family and friends are one of the huge pleasures of reading this book …
~ D. Bennison, Bennison Books 

Full-page ad for The Dove Upon Her Branch, A Novel Portrait of Christina Rossetti in the spring 2024 issue of the  Pre-Raphaelite Society  Review

Denton’s novel is very evidently a labour of love, meticulously researched and crafted, which brings together academic research and creative reconstruction. It offers not only an insight into Rossetti’s life, but more broadly into the interior workings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their acquaintances.

Yet the most well-drawn characters must certainly be the Rossettis themselves, with Christina Rossetti at the heart. Denton provides an exploration of the unconventional life of the family, from its establishment in England through the lives of its artistic, and wildly different, offspring.

Denton does not neglect her key focus. She interweaves primary source material, most often poetry, into her narrative in order to give a real sense that we are witnessing Christina’s innermost thoughts and emotions.
~ Pre-Raphaelite Society Review: Summer 2024 edition

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©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Previously, I’ve shared how I went there a woman and came back a child with my eyes full of the clouds coming over the mountains.

Going through letters from England, now to myself, I found some further thoughts on my three journeys to Ireland that took me halfway home but all the way to where I needed to be.

Copyright 2012 by DM Denton

A spring Sunday in Dublin, Christ’s little brides happy to celebrate with a meal at McDonalds
From coast to coast, covered in cowslips and folksongs
Not a limerick heard, not even in its place where we stayed to hear a harp’s angel
Bumping along in coaches with windows steamed and destinations , like the weather, constantly changing
The mystery of alpine flowers on the Burren’s stony paradise
Orchids not for picking
Layers of streets, a lunch of mussels and beer, and buying old postcards in Galway
 Thoughts swept away by the cliffs of Moher
Secluded coves with sandy beaches
The mile long dream of Dingle, being Ryan’s daughter, tea with Peggy and tales of Gregory Peck
Shrine at Slea head, the edge of the world
A ring in Kerry that never broke its promise
Starlings descending on Killarney
Muckross magic in mossy woods, botanical gardens, mist shrouded mountains and mirror-clear lakes
Rhododendrons and fuchsias wilder than anywhere else would allow
The meeting of the waters and differing reasons for being there
Miles and miles of freedom on a bicycle
Airy woods of oak and ash and silver birch, feathery fern, lichen dripping and moss imagining a smaller world
Fields of gorse and heather blending yellow and purple
Sunshine and rain breezing in and out, taking turns to create the artist’s view
Water, water everywhere, all around and in-between
Sudden cascades and corners of serenity
Train station benches turned for looking the other way
A cottage for a week, stray cats at the door, peat burning slowly and sweetly, wild mushrooms and blackberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Copyright 2012 by DM Denton

A thousand welcomes from new friends who would never be old
 Not a day or night without a smile and a song
So much more to remember than forget

And so I return, again and again.

And as a bonus, from St. Patrick’s ‘Breastplate’ Prayer:

I bind unto myself today

The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Diane on Dingle Beach 1983And let’s not forget it’s also the feast day of …

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Before she closed her eyes on that day she would be tempted to hold and look at one of her most treasured possessions: a Valentine, a pretty thing of lace paper, satin ribbon, & embossed flowers with a little bird in an egg-filled nest, Anne, dear, sweet, Anne quickly written but not yet slowly spoken.

It was unto her spirit given.

From Without the Veil Between: Anne Bronte, A Fine and Subtle Spirit

In February 1840, a young man walked ten miles from Haworth to Bradford, West Yorkshire in order to anonymously post Valentines to four young women who he expected would be charmed by them. The flirtatious fellow was William Weightman, curate to Reverend Patrick Brontë.

Was William being capricious or compassionate or, perhaps, a bit of both? Sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne and their dear friend Ellen had never received a Valentine before. They may have been fooled by the sender’s motivation, but not by his identity. Charlotte probably told herself to view her Valentine cynically. Emily likely looked hers over quickly and put it aside. Possibly, Ellen enjoyed hers for vanity’s sake.

And that fourth Valentine? I like to think it was the most special, because …

William wrote different verses in each. Well, three are known. The receiver of Fair Ellen, Fair Ellen is obvious. Away fond love and Soul divine could have been inscribed – to tease rather than ensnare – any of the Brontë sisters.

Anne might have hoped for a deeper meaning in hers, that sending four was William being discreet and inclusive, which, of course, her shy and generous nature would appreciate.

 

Was William Weightman the love of Anne’s life? Who better than Anne herself to answer … in the way that beautiful poetry tells without saying.

 

That voice, the magic of whose tone
Can wake an echo in my breast,
Creating feelings that, alone,
Can make my tranced spirit blest.

That laughing eye, whose sunny beam
My memory would not cherish less; —
And oh, that smile! whose joyous gleam
Nor mortal language can express.
~ from Farewell by Anne Brontë

What had been hope at first sight, a stir of her heart, amiable reserve, foolish diffidence, a February keepsake, time standing still and looking forward with a gentle exchange of words and glances in a trusted parting, was, in a moment … all that was left of William, her William, never hers except as she imagined, always hers as she would forever know him.
~ from Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine & Subtle Spirit

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

 

The snow has come early, silently covering leaves never raked but left to nourish or suffocate the ground on which the future stands.

Deeper and deeper, it’s all hidden for now.

This season for gathering is not crowded here in the quiet company of snow.

Looking back to the place called home, candles are lit to welcome without letting in. Although the passing of possibilities might, at least, enter dreams in the night.

Photograph & Painting Copyrighted by DM Denton 2013

The light comes up and notices a Cardinal heart-red against the idea that winter is colorless – also challenged by berries clinging to the bareness of branches.

Copyright 2013 by DM Denton

‘Tis the season for standing still. All growing needs a rest.

The rain is falling now, warm and then icy, washing away the cleanliness of snow, which is already missed. I hear it will return before too long.

Nature has decided some trees have stood long enough. They will be missed, but have been cleared away for a new outlook.

This is winter before it is Christmas. This is hope after it has given up.

Copyright June M DiGiacomo (my mom) March 10, 1929 – October 14, 2021

Wishing alla warm and wonderous Winter Solstice and Holiday seasonhowever you celebrate and enjoy!

 

In the Bleak Mid-Winter
Christina Rossetti   In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart. 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

A few days late sharing this slightly revamped post noting
the anniversary of the December 5, 1830 birth of Christina Rossetti

The sun nor loiters nor speeds,
The rivers run as they ran,
Through clouds or through windy reeds
All run as when all began.

from
Time Flies, A Reading Diary
by Christina Rossetti
December 5th entry
(First published 1885)

Pre-Raphaelite Society Review of
The Dove Upon Her Branch, A Novel Portrait of Christina Rossetti

Christina was part of a remarkable family of English-Italian scholars, artists, and poets, her older brother being Dante Gabriel Rossetti, founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. I wrote A Brief Bio of Her and, also, 10 Fascinating Facts About Her for The Literary Ladies Guide.

From left to right: Christina, Dante Gabriel, Frances (mother), William, and Maria Rossetti
Photograph by Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
1863

A Birthday
By Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
                  Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
                  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
                  That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
                  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
                  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
                  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
                  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
                  Is come, my love is come to me.

from Ecce Ancilla Domini, or The Annunciation
by Dante Gabriel RossettiExcerpt from The Dove Upon Her Branch

Christina and William Rossetti posing
for the painting of Ecce Ancilla Domini
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
in November 1849

Another portrait to pose for offered an alternative, productive engagement, being the handmaid of the Lord a worthy occupation. William sitting for the Angel Gabriel completed a happy if draughty distraction of camaraderie and creation with her brothers.

     At that time Gabriel worked on Newman Street above a hop-shop or Dancing Academy as its proprietor tried to improve it.

     “Why is the painting tall and narrow?” Christina wondered with her first glance at the work in progress.

     “It is one-half of a diptych. Its companion will depict the Virgin’s death.”

     “Will you have both finished by spring for the R.A.?” William slapped his arms around himself in an attempt to warm his sleeveless, sheeted body. “Anymore coal for the grate?”

     “Doubt it.” Gabriel urgently picked through the pile of brushes on the small pedestal table next to his easel.

     Christina noticed they were all thin-handled and fine-bristled. “No wonder you take so long to finish anything.” She also looked at his pallet, noticing he wasn’t mixing colors, but using fresh daubs of unadulterated white, blue, and red paint.

     “I hope you won’t get bronchitis again.” William repositioned the woolen shawl that had slipped off her shoulders.   

     “I haven’t even caught a cold.” Christina had resigned herself to shivering in her flimsy nightgown for the sake of Gabriel’s vision and to prove as enduring as any of the other models who sat for him.

     “Interesting.” As he leaned forward, William put a hand on his brother’s back. “Even with as little as you’ve done, I see the perspective of Giotto. Yet, I also see Flemish primitive, what you and Hunt were so taken with in Bruges. Before you started, I noticed you had followed Van Eyck’s practice of preparing the canvas with white ground.”

     Gabriel smiled. “I’m sure it will all seem a confused mess to those, like Ruskin, who think their opinions matter.”

     “A risk worth taking. But you must enter both panels together.”

     “I don’t paint to exhibit.”

     “You must, Gabe, to make a name for yourself, a living. Your work must be seen. And critiqued.”

     “Says the would-be critic.”

      “Now I see why you want me contorted on a corner of that saggy cot.” Christina though it wise to change the subject. “And all wrinkly and looking about to jump up and run away.”

     “I thank Collinson for your disquiet.” Gabriel was still brooding over Mr. Hunt falling into arrears with the rent on Cleveland Street and defecting to James’ studio in Brompton.

     They had spoken of many things during the hours of posing and painting, breaking to eat and drink, and for Christina and William to wrap themselves in blankets long enough to feel their fingers and toes again. Not once, until that moment, had anyone mentioned the man Christina had, without good reason, agreed to marry. She was almost convinced the last year of his waxing and waning hadn’t happened; that somewhere out there was the face not seen, the voice not heard, the heart that not yet—

Copyright © DM Denton 2022

Ecce Ancilla Domini, or The Annunciation
by Dante Gabriel RossettiBrief was the day of its power,
The day of its grace how brief:
As the fading of a flower,
As the falling of a leaf,
So brief its day and its hour …

from
Time Flies, A Reading Diary
by Christina Rossetti
December 5th entry
(First published 1885)

Christina Rossetti by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1877Sing, that in thy song I may
Dream myself once more a childfrom Maud by Christina RossettiChristina Rossetti as a child, by William Bell ScottHappy Birthday, Christina Rossetti

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to  bardessdmdenton . Thank you.

My latest commissioned pet portrait of Poppy, a Groodle (cross between a Poodle and a Golden Retriever) traveled all the way to Australia, a recent birthday present for the daughter of one of my Facebook friends, Rosanna Taylor.

Rosanna wrote: “Jasmin was absolutely thrilled to receive this beautiful surprise for her 50th birthday … serendipity at its finest … as it was 10 years ago for her 40th that you painted her first dog Harry who sadly passed away 5 years ago …

“Both pictures are now on the family room wall.”

Here’s Harry …

Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.”
~ Colette

Visit my website for more examples of my artwork. Scroll down for the pet portraits.

https://www.dmdenton-author-artist.com/commissioned…

I’m always open to taking commissions. Contact me through my website:

dmdenton-author-artist.com

OR this blog:

bardessdmdenton.wordpress.com

And here is my latest fur-baby, two-year-old Tommy.

It’s just over five weeks since sweet, sassy, joyous, extremely affectionate Tommy got his fur-ever home with Oscar, Kenji, and Yoshi and me!

He’s settled in so well, learning the different personalities and boundaries of his big brothers, while filling our lives with his magnetically pur-fect personality and spirit.

He is SO loved!

Tommy was rescued from a hoarding situation by the Wyoming County SPCA in Attica NY. He is the fifth cat I have adopted from this shelter. Support through donations is always needed.

The Wyoming County SPCA is an organization that relies solely on contributions from the community. We collect NO government funding!  Without you we would not be able to provide temporary housing to animals that need loving homes. Please help us to continue our mission with your generous donation!

This post is in memory of a dear friend’s cat, Kita, who recently passed over the rainbow bridge. I painted a portrait of beautiful Kita a few years ago.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
~ Anatole France

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

On July 30th, 1818, Emily Jane Brontë was born in Thornton, West Yorkshire, England.

Emily didn’t often show enthusiasm for going to church and was usually loathed to enjoy herself in public, but her happy anticipation of Mendelssohn’s Paulus put on quite a display of smiles and excited fidgeting. 

    Also uninhibited by excitement, Anne grasped Emily’s hand, hoping she wouldn’t mind.

Emily endorsed Anne’s effort with a quick squeeze. “I have to catch up with his Songs without Words volumes. I believe there are eight now. I only have five.”

Finally Anne knew what Emily’s birthday present should be, just enough time to send away for it.

© from Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit by DM Denton

Although my novel Without the Veil Between focuses on Anne, Emily is essential to the narrative, whether they are together at Haworth, on an excursion to York, or separated for long periods of time.

Emily was an imaginative and liberating influence on dutiful, devout Anne, a constant and protective best friend who by example more than precept reminded her little sister to leave at least some of her spirit unfettered and even encouraged her to now and then step out of life’s responsibilities and live a little wildly, especially as mother earth beckoned her to.

For nature is constant still
For when the heart is free from care
Whatever meets the eye
Is bright, and every sound we hear
Is full of melody …
~ Anne Brontë, from Verses for Lady Geralda, 1836

Long after the Brontë sisters had died, Charlotte’s friend Ellen Nussey wrote in Reminisces of Charlotte Brontë that “(Emily) and Anne were like twins – inseparable companions, and in the very closest sympathy, which never had any interruption.”

What better way to enjoy time with Emily again than by reliving their habit of wandering west to meet only earth and sky. T heir dogs, like themselves, despite contrasting physiques and personalities, were intrinsically similar, especially in their need to frequently escape the stuffiness and limited amusement of being indoors. 

© from Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit by DM Denton

From Pillar Portrait by Branwell Brontë

As children they formed an alliance apart from Charlotte, brother Branwell and the fictional world of Angria to invent their own imaginary kingdom of Gondal. The departure of Charlotte to Roe Head School meant they became even closer, but something more powerful than circumstance cemented their devotion: the innate ability to understand, unconditionally love, lighten, consolingly burden and so strengthen each other, to speak in silence as much as conversation, and, perhaps, most significantly, to create “the very closest sympathy” through the infinite sisterhood of their imaginations.

To Imagination by Emily Brontë

When weary with the long day’s care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost, and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again
O my true friend, I am not lone
While thou canst speak with such a tone!

So hopeless is the world without,
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world where guile and hate and doubt
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou and I and Liberty
Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters it that all around
Danger and grief and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom’s bound
We hold a bright unsullied sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?

Reason indeed may oft complain
For Nature’s sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy newly blown.

But thou art ever there to bring
The hovering visions back and breathe
New glories o’er the blighted spring
And call a lovelier life from death,
And whisper with a voice divine
Of real worlds as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
Yet still in evening’s quiet hour
With never-failing thankfulness I
welcome thee, benignant power,
Sure solacer of human cares
And brighter hope when hope despairs.

Emily Brontë’s fold-up writing desk and contents

Anne was less hesitant [than Charlotte] to being drawn into Emily’s simply lived yet creatively complex orbit; then Anne had grown up in it, been sustained by it, and found true friendship in it. She knew, welcoming the hope in that knowledge, that even as Emily seemed unsentimental, letting them go to their beds and disappointments and fears and useless efforts to change what couldn’t be changed, she was keeping a place for them by the fire of her imagination and fidelity.

© from Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit by DM Denton

Haworth Parsonage, painted in the 1970s by DM Denton©

What was complicated for her sisters and brother was simple for Emily: there was no going back to working for little profit to end up more impoverished. She settled once and for all into the confinement that unleashed her fantasies, escaping change except as she grew taller and stronger and unapologetically herself. “I am as God made me,” Charlotte reported Emily’s answer to the “silly” girls at the Pensionnat who ridiculed her clothes, walk, thoughts, and habits. Anne couldn’t decide if such certainty made Emily saintly or blasphemous. According to Charlotte it did the trick in stopping the harassment, so it would seem an enlightened declaration after all.

Emily knew her place and stuck with it without being stuck, like a solitary tree on the moor. She was as violently content, shaped by the wind yet unyielding, in motion without leaving the spot she was rooted in.

© from Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit by DM Denton

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

A re-post for May Day 2025with the addition of a poem from
the early 20th century poet, essayist, and novelist
Mary Webb
Subject of my current WIP novelThe Difference Daisy Chain Illustration © by DM Denton

I walk among the daisies, as of old;
But he comes never more by lane or fold.
The same warm speedwell-field is dark with dew;
But he’s away beyond a deeper blue.
A year to-day we saw the same flowers grow–
Last May! Last May! A century ago.

Above the speedwell leans the rosy tree
From which he plucked an apple bough for me.
Not all the blossom on the branches left
Can fill the place of that sweet bough bereft;
And none can fill the heart that loved him so
Last May! Last May! Eternities ago.

~Mary Gladys Webb (1881 – 1927, English novelist and poet, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters) 

 

Copyright © by DM Denton

There is But One May in the Year

There is but one May in the year,
And sometimes May is wet and cold;
There is but one May in the year
Before the year grows old.
Yet though it be the chilliest May,
With least of sun and most of showers,
Its wind and dew, its night and day,
Bring up the flowers.
~ Christina Rossetti (1830-1894, English poet of romantic, devotional, and children’s poems)

 

 

The May Queen

But I must gather knots of flowers,
And buds and garlands gay,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother,
I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892, Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria’s reign)

 

Oh! that we two were Maying

Oh! that we two were Maying
Down the stream of the soft spring breeze;
Like children with violets playing,
In the shade of the whispering trees.
~ Charles Kingsley (1819-1875, social reformer, historian and novelist)

 

May-Day

Wreaths for the May! for happy Spring
Today shall all her dowry bring
The love of kind, the joy, the grace,
Hymen of element and race,
Knowing well to celebrate
With song and hue and star and state,
With tender light and youthful cheer,
The spousals of the new-born year.
Lo love’s inundation poured
Over space and race abroad
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American essayist, lecturer, philosopher and poet)

 

May Day

A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.
Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.
Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;
For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?
~ Sara Teasdale (American poet, 1884 – 1933)

 

Illustration © by DM Denton

Song on May Morning

Now the bright morning-star, Day’s harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire!
Woods and groves are of thy dressing;
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.
~ John Milton (1608-1674, English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and civil servant) 

 

Illustration © by DM Denton

 

Winds of May

Winds of May, that dance on the sea,
Dancing a ring-around in glee
From furrow to furrow, while overhead
The foam flies up to be garlanded,
In silvery arches spanning the air,
Saw you my true love anywhere?
Welladay! Welladay!
For the winds of May!
Love is unhappy when love is away!
~ James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish novelist, short story writer, and poet)

 

Illustration © by DM Denton

In May Poem

Yes, I will spend the livelong day
With Nature in this month of May;
And sit beneath the trees, and share
My bread with birds whose homes are there;
While cows lie down to eat, and sheep
Stand to their necks in grass so deep;
While birds do sing with all their might,
As though they felt the earth in flight.
~ William Henry Davies (1871-1940, Welsh poet and writer)

 

Illustration © by DM Denton

Queer things happen in the garden in May. Little faces forgotten appear, and plants thought to be dead suddenly wave a green hand to confound you.
~ W. E . Johns (1893-1968, English First World War pilot, and writer of adventure stories)

 

The fair maid who, the first of May
Goes to the fields at break of day
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree
Will ever after handsome be.
~ Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme

 

Illustration © by DM Denton

 

When April Steps Aside

When April steps aside for May,
Like diamonds all the rain-drops glisten;
Fresh violets open every day:
To some new bird each hour we listen.
~ Lucy Larcom (1824-1893, American teacher, poet, and author)

 

 

 

The Sun and the Wind

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud come over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
~ Robert Frost (1874-1963, American poet)

  

Illustration © by DM Denton

May

I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.
~ Christina Rossetti (1830-1894, English poet of romantic, devotional, and children’s poems)

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
~ William Shakespeare

Simply speaking … it’s May! It’s Daisy May!Illustration © by DM Denton

In forgotten places
there are daisies
to love
whether I am
or not
call them dogged or
ox-eyed or
Marguerite
by any name
they are still
a treat.

~ DM Denton
from A Friendship with Flowers

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

If she were more perfect, she would be less interesting Today is the 205th Anniversary
of Anne Brontë’s birth, January 17, 1820! She is subject of my novel … Available at Amazon in print, for Kindle devices and app, and as an Audio BookAmazon USAmazon UK

Above all, through the well-measured words of Denton, a young Anne emerges more and more. She frees from the web of religiosity with which she traditionally is painted, [and] tries to leave something good in the world through her measured but deliberately targeted writing. A different Anne at the beginning of the book, timidly in love; then resigned to accept her own death with dignity and fortitude. A meaningful homage to the memory of Anne Brontë.

~ Maddalena De Leo, Italian Representative of The Bronte Society

STC98097 Portrait of Anne Bronte (1820-49) from a drawing in the possession of the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, engraved by Walker and Boutall (engraving) by Bronte, Charlotte (1816-55) (after)
engraving
Private Collection
The Stapleton Collection
English, out of copyrightThanks to her dear sister Emily, who is reported to have been a wonderful baker, Anne celebrates her birthday in Chapter Nine of Without the Veil Between.

It was years since Anne was home on her birthday. Emily baked an oatmeal and treacle cake a couple of days ahead of the teatime designated for its consumption to soften it in a tin.

“I’ll allow no one to refuse a piece of Annie’s parkin.” Emily, unusually, looked very pleased with herself. “I mean to give my bet’r sen some happy thoughts.” She even sang some lines from an old ballad supposedly from the time of Robin Hood. “‘Now the guests well satisfied, the fragments were laid on one side when Arthur, to make hearts merry, brought ales and parkins and perry.’”

“‘When Timothy Twig stept in, with his pipe and a pipkin of gin,’” Branwell followed on singing.

“Always the spoiler.” Emily didn’t look at him.

“Well, part of a song doesn’t tell the whole story.”

Anne briefly escaped their argument to take a piece of cake out to Tabby in the back kitchen. Easily wearied and hard-of-hearing, the old servant was trying to nap in a straight-backed chair positioned in the draft from the back door.

“Where’s your shawl?” Almost as soon as she wondered, Anne found it draped over the handle of a broom leaning against a wall.

“Eh? What yer fuss?”

Anne gently laid the loosely-knit shawl around Tabby’s shoulders and gave her the plate of cake.

“Dear angel-lass.”

Later, as the sisters spent a final parlor-cozy evening before Anne returned to Thorpe Green, Branwell off to take advantage of his last chance for a while to “stept in” at the Black Bull, even Charlotte admitted the liability he presented to their progress.

“The way it’s going with him, it’s better our school scheme comes to nothing. No doubt he’ll soon be home again, unemployable, even less able to provide decent company. Certainly not an example of manhood young girls should witness.”

Anne never told Charlotte as much as she did Emily, but there was no way to prevent the disturbance of her and Branwell returning home for the holidays together but estranged. As soon as they arrived, Anne fled the hours of traveling with him as though nothing ever disgusted her more. Over the weeks Branwell tried to converse with her beyond yes and no and maybe. Normally, her forbearing nature wouldn’t allow her to slight anyone, but with agitated busyness she dismissed him—to comb Flossy or clean Dick’s cage or help in the kitchen, which she rarely did, or beg Charlotte to let her read to their father who didn’t know of his son’s latest sin but might notice his guilt, so Branwell kept out of his way.

For a while Anne was as cowardly avoiding her brother, even if it meant staying in her room when he was in the house.

She wasn’t proud of her behavior. Gradually she felt more ashamed of her own choices and failings than Branwell’s, blaming her intransigence and righteousness for her failure to persuade him to stand stronger against temptation. Love was what she was made for, understanding, forgiveness and faith at the heart of her, good memories soothing the bad. Flashes of the gentle brother with his little sister on his knee, proving his talent for telling stories too entertaining to question and drawing pretty pictures he inscribed for Anne, tempted her to once more hope he might yet chose rationale and, especially, what was right, over ruin.

“Let’s expect he’ll be better and do better.” It was as if Emily had read Anne’s thoughts. “Speak no more of it tonight. Are you still working on the same poem, Annie?”

“Still wrangling with it. You know how it is, thinking it might be better with a different word or different order of words, more metaphors or less. That it might benefit from leaving some sentiments out altogether.”

“I hope it isn’t gloomy.” Charlotte was sitting across the parlor table from Anne, the paper she was fingering easily in view as the beginnings of a letter in French.

Emily’s lounging took on the look of someone double-jointed with her right leg slid off the sofa and her left one lifted and bent, its stockinged foot pressed against the back of the couch. She made a feeble effort of controlling her skirt for modesty’s sake. “It’s rather pleading.”

“Entreating,” Anne corrected as she knew Emily would appreciate.

Emily winked. “If you say so.”

“Let’s hear it entreat then,” Charlotte challenged.

Anne didn’t want to read the poem out loud and spoil the evening with dread of what she was going back to the next day. For a moment, she considered sharing a little of Passages instead, an excerpt that was well-worked and entertaining. Sensing her sister’s impatience, she stood with one of her journals, opening it to its middle and flipping a few pages further. With a slow, almost tiptoeing stride, she recited as she moved around the table, because of the limited space brushing Charlotte’s back with each passing by.

“‘God. If this indeed be all that Life can show to me; if on my aching brow may fall no freshening dew from Thee; if no brighter light than this the lamp of hope may glow, and I may only dream of bliss and wake to weary woe—’”

Emily sighed as dramatically as she never naturally did.

“You always cheer us so.”

“I’m sorry, Charlotte. I won’t continue.” Anne had reached her chair after a second circling.

“No, go on. The writing itself is lovely.”

“‘If friendship’s solace must decay, when other joys are gone, and love must keep so far away—’”

“Enough.” Charlotte groaned.

“Not for me.” Emily threw her head back and closed her eyes.

Anne continued, realizing the poem was quite good and nearly as she intended. However, she hesitated when she reached the fourth verse, mustering up the courage to take a risk.

“Vice and sin?” Emily echoed. “Nothing to do with anyone we know, of course.”

“That’s it for now. I have yet to perfect the rest of it.”

Illustration by DM Denton from “Without the Veil Between”I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.
~ Anne Brontë, from her introduction to the second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

I allow she has small claims to perfection; but then, I maintain that, if she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.
~ Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell HallHappy Birthday, Anne Brontë
and
thank you
for taking me on
an extraordinary and transformational
 writing experience!

 This is the most beautiful novel about Anne Brontë and her sisters that I’ve read in a very long time. I couldn’t put it down once I’d started. I fell into the author’s languid writing style and was captivated by her research and depth of scope of the life of the sisters. The novel is beautifully illustrated by the author herself. It is a book to be savored and enjoyed.

~ Kimberly Eve, Victorian Musings

 Check out all of my historical/biographical fiction

  

© 2020 Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

This is my fourth Christmas without my mom who passed in October 2021. The Snow White Gift, a Kindle short story published by All Things That Matter Press, was based on true events from her childhood. She loved it and always talked about how it deserved more readers.

I agree!

Anyone who spent time with my mother June soon discovered that she was a wonderful verbal storyteller.

It is with some sadness but mostly gratefulness of being able to preserve one of my mother’s special memories that, as a storyteller through the written word, I continue to reach out with it.

In Depression-weary times, a little girl’s wish for a special doll touches a stoic heart. Through sacrifice and pure intent, giving her what she wants results in disappointment but eventually confirms that love and patience can work magic.

A seasonal story
for every season

The Snow White Gift

by DM Denton

A childish gasp greeted the wide-eyed porcelain doll. The exploration of a trunk full of old clothes uncovered it, eager hands lifting it from lying so long on its back in the dark. It blinked, dropped its arms, stretched its legs and lowered its chin while its sleeves were pinched out. An attempt was made to smooth the creases in its skirt and cape; the ribbon in its hair retied. Other than twisting awkwardly when it was hugged like a long lost friend, it offered no resistance to being rescued from what might have been the end of its story.

The Snow White Gift is available to read in its entirety on Kindle devices or for most other devices by downloading
the Kindle app.

US $.99

UK £0.99

FREE if you have Kindle unlimited!

Happy Holidays and New Year to all. We must not lose hope that peace and love will prevail.

The Snow White Gift by Diane Denton is a compelling, moving, touching and beautiful fictional short story set around Christmas in Depression-weary times. Personally, I think this is a story everyone should read for its all about the art of giving. Unconditional giving, from the heart without asking anything back in return. Willing to set our own wishes aside to be able to give to another person. I can highly recommend this wondrous and excellent written story to you! I read all the pages in one breath. ~ 5 Star Amazon Review

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.