Showcasing vintage male photography, mostly nude. You must be 18 years of age or older to visit this blog! If you hold a copyright on any material shown on this blog, notify me, and it will be removed immediately.
Followers
Sunday, January 29, 2023
Gaylord Flory 1945
I like the Impressionist feel to this 1945 piece by Gaylord Flory.
Yes, but he grew up during the height of the Victorian fashionable near-obsession with death. With the population explosion, families started to lose more children and there were more deaths in sheer numbers. Nearly all the rituals of burial and grieving come down to us from this time, when Housman was active and it is much reflected in his work.
There is the youth, the litheness and the poise of the athlete beautifully captured here.
ReplyDeleteTo An Athlete Dying Young
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
A. E. Housman - 1859-1936
Housman could be dark, but then he was living in the age before penicillin.
DeleteYes, but he grew up during the height of the Victorian fashionable near-obsession with death. With the population explosion, families started to lose more children and there were more deaths in sheer numbers. Nearly all the rituals of burial and grieving come down to us from this time, when Housman was active and it is much reflected in his work.
DeleteOoh now I'm going to have to watch Out of Africa for the umpteenth time. :-)
DeleteCertainly is fetching in the rumpage area.
ReplyDelete