Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Their Songs Wake Singing Echoes in My Land

Platypuss here again. It's probably just as well we don't have weddings very often in Big Bed Land. What a riot of images and emotions! It's not easy to sort through all the Animal Minds around here, but I started looking around... and guess who I found in the imagination of the Best Man? Christina Rosetti! Here's a photo of the lovely singing bird who showed up - so fortuitously! - on the day of the Christmas wedding.

And here's Best Man Piggles herself in the Wedding Gazebo. And this is the poem she chose as a wedding poem, called
A Birthday by Christina Rosetti:

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 thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these,
Because my love has 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.

(Goat is
forced to groan here because Monster E. is having sweet thoughts about Monster J. - weddings are hard on Goat!) Bink mentions that it makes sense to find Christina R. in the mind of Piggles, because she wrote a wonderful book of poetry for children (this is the kind of poetry that Animals often like best.) The book is called Sing-Song and it's a BBL favorite because of the philosophy that lies encoded in lines such as these:


When fishes set umbrellas up
If the rain-drops run,
Lizards will want their parasols
To shade them from the sun.


This drawing, according to BBL historians (whose sources are not found in Monster Dictionaries, Bink points out) depicts the moment when Christina Rosetti
, with her Goblin Market sister, sketches out a vision of Big Bed Land and writes her immortal words:

Their songs wake singing echoes in my land.

5 comments:

  1. Oh Piggles, your choice of wedding poems is so very moving--one of my favorites, made more special as part of this great celebration. Thank you for sharing the Christina Rosetti drawing. I had wondered about her connection to BBL, and now I feel as though so much has been made clear to me. Blessings upon you all!

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  2. Dear Audrey,
    you are a lady and a scholar and we are happy you appreciate this bit of literary history. So many things that literary critics have struggled for years to understand would be perfectly clear if they only grasped the Influence of Animals on the poetic mind. Did you know that Christina Rosetti's uncle joined the house party during which Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein? He also contributed a piece that was to become popular - The Vampyre...small world, wouldn't you agree?

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  3. Quite a small world, indeed! I'm not at all surprised to learn of such connections since they seem to be springing up like blossoms these days.

    Speaking of blossoms, Piggles, you look quite radiant in the Gazebo!

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  4. Wishing you every happiness, Glamora and Willa Bear. Your beauty, poise and obvious adoration of one another gives renews our faith in ever abiding power of love. May it sustain us all.

    I trust the Monsters and Animals will allow you a suitable nesting spot, that you might enoy a bit of domestic bliss without the constant intrusions of others?

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  5. Dear Margot,
    it's a good thing I have you and Iris around to advise me! Without Iris, I would never have known that Willa Bear was in love. And without you, Willa Bear and Glamora would not be having a honeymoon. I fear I am a selfish Monster. The happy couple has found a quiet spot under the yayli tambour. Thanks!

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