Daoine · Sidh

The poet Francis Thompson (1859-1907), photograph taken in the 1890s (digital image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


The Poppy
by Francis Thompson

-to Monica-

Summer set lip to earth’s bosom bare,
And left the flush’d print in a poppy there;
Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,
And the fanning wind puff’d it to flapping flame.

With burnt mouth red like a lion’s it drank
The blood of the sun as he slaughter’d sank,
And dipp’d its cup in the purpurate shine
When the eastern conduits ran with wine.

Till it grew lethargied with fierce bliss,
And hot as a swinked gipsy is,
And drowsed in sleepy savageries,
With mouth wide a-pout for a sultry kiss. ...

~~~~~~~

(And so the dream begins ...)



Flora illustration of Papaver somniferum, the opium poppy (image from my personal digital library, source unknown)


I read Francis Thompson's poem over a week ago, and quickly lost myself in the rich lyrical imagery embedded his beautifully tragic lines of verse. Poor Thompson! He spent the greater part of his forty-eight years on this earth struggling with an opium addiction that he developed in his early twenties at medical school, a career path forced upon him by his exasperated father, after Thompson was rejected from a Catholic seminary for being 'too reserved'. A socially awkward and shy young man, who desired for nothing more than the quiet life of a poet, he was entirely out of his element in the surgical and dissection theaters, as well as in his interactions with other students, and turned to opium as a means of escape from the world into which he had been thrown. It is thought that after reading Thomas de Quincey's seminal work The Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thompson tasted his first drops of laudanum (a tincture of opium in alcohol sold in many shops throughout the nineteenth century), and like so many of those sensitive and creative minds that came before him, succumbed to the soothing warmth of this ancient narcotic. Opium is, after all, one of the oldest preferred medicines in the world, and for those who partake of it in a recreational sense, its effects have been likened to touching the hand of a god, the results of which can be angelic, demonic or both. So important has it been since the unknown date of its discovery (at some dim point in our unrecorded past), that a few scholars believe it might be one of a handful of reasons why hunter-gatherer groups settled into a sedentary agricultural way of life in the Fertile Crescent all those thousands of years ago. Opium, beer and wine, to name just a few - favorite concoctions that required some organized cultivation, in order to perfect the supplies for the increasing demands of a rapidly growing populace ... a rather darkly amusing aspect of our civilized origins.

And so, Thompson joined the ranks of those who had tasted the flower before him, and partook of a bit too much of its alluring sweetness. In The Poppy he presents us with the visions of a man whose need for the drug increased over years of use. In this scenario, the body builds up a tolerance, and thus requires more and more of the medicine to produce the eagerly sought after effects of comfort and euphoria, and soon one pursues life only as a means to get their needed dose. Years go by, and one's sense of time is lost in between the obsessively counted hours of lack, and the hours that stretch sometimes into days of lying in the arms of Morpheus. And yet, as impossible as it may seem to those who have not tasted (and benefitted) from its bitter sweetness, the lascivious beauty of this particular flower can still be described as having 'dipp'd its cup in the purpurate shine when the eastern conduits ran with wine' by one who was so desperately caught up in the web of its darkest spell. For poets and writers such as Thompson, de Quincey, Coleridge and Collins, the miseries that were brought on by addiction were often framed in the cooling shade of those petals, and so homage was paid to the angelic devil who wreaked so much havoc, but also granted a few hours of perfect peace to their troubled souls.

It is also interesting to note that the fascination for and worship of Papaver somniferum spread beyond the realm of those addicted to its narcotic properties. As I read The Poppy, exquisite works of art that include images of poppies and the mystical realms of those who partook of a pipe or two of opium flashed through my mind. I spent days looking through the art books in our personal library for some of these paintings and sculptures, and extended my search to some of the online sources for art research - in short, I had my own moments of lost time over the past week, chasing after the fleeting shadow of Morpheus as captured by artists and writers across the ages of recorded time. It would take books and books worth of pages to discuss all of this material, but this rather long entry (one of the longest in my collection here) will at least present a selection of my favorite images discovered over the last few days (beware, there are loads of pretty pictures!), and some more literary evidence of humankind's fascination for this beautiful flower of evil. Demonic and divine, it is presented as the preferred flower of both Thanatos and the goddess Demeter, and the effects of its burning resin embody characteristics of both. A symbol of true romanticism, its medicinal qualities have been a great benefit to those in physical and mental pain, while at the same time wreaking havoc upon those who succumb completely to the allure of its addictive properties. Glossy petals that have always drunk 'the blood of the sun as he slaughter’d sank', and then waited for that 'sultry kiss' - dark and light, light and dark ... and so the dream continues ...



Summer, color lithograph by Alphonse Mucha, c. 1896 (image copied from Alphonse Mucha: The Sprit of Art Nouveau by V. Arwas, et al)


There are numerous examples of the opium poppy, as well as its use as a medicinal and recreational narcotic, in the art and craftsmanship of the ancient world. From the Fertile Crescent and Egypt to the other lands surrounding the Mediterranean, archaeologists have found evidence of humankind's fascination for and worship of this powerful flower, including pipes, jewelry and sculpture. Here are a few examples of the sculptural evidence ...


The sublime Minoan poppy goddess/priestess, c. 1400-1100 BCE, discovered near the site of Knossos and held in the collection of the Iraklion Museum (digital image courtesy of inoe.ro) ...




Bas reliefs of a genie with poppies (top) and a man with an ibex and poppy (bottom), Assyrian, c. early 8th century BCE, the era of Sargon II, found at the site of Dur Sharrukin (digital images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) ...







Bas relief of Ceres (Demeter) or Proserpine (Persephone) rising from the ground with sheaves of wheat and poppies, Roman, Augustan period (digital image courtesy of Roanoke student Alicia Ashby's site on the Aventine Triad) ...




The association of the poppy with the goddesses Demeter and Persephone was widespread throughout the Greek and Roman eras, but it was also considered a symbol of Nyx (Night), of her sons Thanatos (Death) and Hypnos (Sleep), and of Morpheus (Dream), who was the son of Hypnos. These symbolic threads were picked up by artists from the medieval era through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who presented all four of these deities with red, purple and white poppies. Here are a few excerpts from my copy of Hall’s Dictionary of Subjects & Symbols in Art (the 1996 edition, with an introduction by Kenneth Clark), which discuss the poppy and its associated deities and realms, accompanied by some of the paintings that represent all four of them ...


Poppy. Its sleep-inducing properties were well known to the ancients. Poppies are the attribute of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep (see SLEEP, KINGDOM OF), of Morpheus, the god of dreams who may be crowned with a garland, and of NIGHT personified.



Nyx (Night), the mother of Hypnos, Morpheus and Thanatos, in her field of poppies - from the Paris Psalter, c. 10th century (digital image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


Night. To Renaissance humanists Night and Day were destructive powers since they ceaselessly marked the passage of time that led inexorably to decay and death. Hence they were sometimes represented as a pair of rodents, generally RATS, one black and one white. The figure of Night personified floats in the sky, sometimes under a blue canopy studded with stars. She may hold a child in each arm, a white one who is Sleep, a black one, Death. Her usual attributes are an OWL, MASKS (which may be worn by putti) and POPPIES, sometimes worn as a crown. She may be accompanied by the sleeping Morpheus, the god of dreams, who may likewise be crowned with poppies (Giordano, Palazzo Riccardi, Florence). Or she sits in the lamplight with folded wings, her head in her hands, the two children asleep nearby. (See also SLEEP, KINGDOM OF.)



Sleep and His Half-Brother Death by John William Waterhouse (Sleep cradles pink blooms of Papaver somniferum in the crook of his arm), c. 1874, oil on canvas (digital image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


Sleep, Kingdom of (‘House of Sleep’; ‘Kingdom of Hypnos’). Hypnos, the Greek personification of Sleep, was the brother of Thanatos, Death. Their mother was Night (Nyx), who is depicted with black wings outspread, holding an infant on each arm, the white one Sleep, the black on Death. Sleep has wings, like Death, and has the OWL and the POPPY for attributes. (The latter’s narcotic properties were known in antiquity.) His dwelling-place is described by Ovid (Met. 11: 589-632) as a cave on a hollow mountainside through which runs the River Lethe, represented as a somnolent river-god reclining on his urn. Sleep is on his couch which is draped with a canopy. Nearby is his son Morpheus, the god of dreams (hence ‘morphia’), who is also winged; and often Death himself in a black robe. The place was once visited by Iris, the messenger of Juno, with orders to send Morpheus on an errand. She is shown descending on bright wings from a rainbow and rousing the sleepy gods. Another visitor was Juno herself who was hatching a plot against her husband Jupiter during the Trojan war and needed help in sending him to sleep. She is seen in the same setting alighting from her chariot drawn by peacocks.



Morpheus and Iris by Baron Pierre Narcisse Guerin (Morpheus is crowned with red poppies), c 1811, oil on canvas (digital image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


The dreams of sleep, the dreams of death, the dreams of night - all embodied in the symbolism of this flower, the threads of which were used by numerous artists and poets throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Poppies were especially associated with mysticism, consolation and death, as can be seen in the following works ...



The Message by Thomas Cooper Gotch, c. 1903, watercolor (digital image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)



The Prioress's Tale by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, c. 1865-1898, oil on canvas (digital image courtesy of The Rossetti Archive)



Death of the Bride by Thomas Cooper Gotch, c. 1894-1895, oil on canvas (digital image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


Excerpt from The Prince’s Progress … by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Veiled figures carrying her
Sweep by yet make no stir;
There is a smell of spice and myrrh
A bride-chant burdened with one name;
The bride-song rises steadier
Than the torches’ flame:

‘Too late for love, too late for joy,
Too late, too late!
You loitered on the road too long,
You trifled at the gate:
The enchanted dove upon her branch
Died without a mate;
The enchanted princess in her tower
Slept, died, behind the grate;
Her heart was starving all this while
You made it wait.

…

‘Is she fair now as she lies?
Once she was fair;
Meet queen for any kingly king,
With gold-dust on her hair.
Now these are poppies in her locks,
White poppies she must wear;
Must wear a veil to shroud her face
And the want graven there:
Or is the hunger fed at length,
Cast off the care?

...

‘You should have wept her yesterday,
Wasting upon her bed:
But wherefore should you weep to-day
That she is dead?
Lo, we who love weep not to-day,
But crown her royal head.
Let be these poppies that we strew,
Your roses are too red:
Let be these poppies, not for you
Cut down and spread.’



Beata Beatrix, oil on canvas by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, c 1864-1870 ... a painted memorial to his wife, Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, who died of a laudanum overdose in 1862 (image copied from my M.A. thesis, Medieval Damozels and Victorian Dreamers: Power and the Female Figure in the Intellectual, Poetic, and Artistic Discourses of the Victorian Medieval Revival)


Excerpt from Dream-Love … by Christina Rossetti

Young Love lies drowsing
Away to poppied death;
Cool shadows deepen
Across the sleeping face:
So fails the summer
With warm, delicious breath;
And what hath autumn
To give us in its place?

Draw close the curtains
Of branched evergreen;
Change cannot touch them
With fading fingers sere:
Here the first violets
Perhaps will bud unseen,
And a dove, may be,
Return to nestle here.


Although there are numerous types of flowers in the Papaver family, most of which have little to none of the narcotic properties of Papaver somniferum, the dictionaries of the same era centered their definitions of 'poppy' around the opium poppy. I own a copy of the Cinquantième Édition of the Petit Larousse Illustré, published under the direction of Claude Augé and by Librairie Larousse (Paris, 1910), and here is the definition and beautiful illustration that is provided in this wonderful little reference ...


PAVOT (vo) n. m. (lat. papaver). Genre de papvéracées à suc blanc laiteux, don’t on extrait l’opium et l’huile dite d’œillette: le pavot a de belles fleurs rouges ou blanches.




Les 'belles fleurs rouges ou blaches' and their 'extrait l'opium', the powerful effects of which were perhaps best described by the early nineteenth-century writer Thomas de Quincey, whose 1822 work The Confessions of an English Opium Eater was mentioned at the beginning of this entry in connection with poor Francis Thompson. It has been well over fifteen years since I read this book, and a review of its contents is long overdue, but here is a passage that I found particularly compelling at the time, and consequently still remember - it is accompanied by some of the more beautiful paintings of the Orientalist movement featuring poppies, opium smokers and the languorous bliss of Mediterranean afternoons, which I discovered in my searches over the past week ...



Engraving of Thomas de Quincey, unknown date, but likely done sometime in the 1840s (digital image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


'O just, subtle, and all-conquering opium! that, to the hearts of rich and poor alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for the pangs of grief that “tempt the spirit to rebel,” bringest an assuaging balm; ...



The Opium Smoker by Jean Lecomte du Noüy (1842-1923), date unknown, oil on panel (digital image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


-- eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath, pleadest effectually for relenting pity, and through one night’s heavenly sleep callest back to the guilty man the visions of his infancy, and hands washed pure from blood; ...



Ask Me No More, oil on canvas by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, c 1906 (image copied from Lawrence Alma-Tadema by R. J. Barrow)


-- O just and righteous opium! that to the chancery of dreams summonest, for the triumphs of despairing innocence, false witnesses, and confoundest perjury, and dost reverse the sentences of unrighteous judges; ...



The Siesta (Afternoon in Dreams) by Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928), date unknown, oil on canvas (digital image courtesy of Arabia Exotica)


-- thou buildest upon the bosom of darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples, beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles, beyond the splendours of Babylon and Hekatómpylos; ...



Silver Favourites, oil on wood by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, c 1903 (image copied from Lawrence Alma-Tadema by R. J. Barrow)


…and, “from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,” callest into sunny light the faces of long buried beauties, and the blessed household countenances, cleansed from the “dishonours of the grave.” ...



Le Fumeur Oriental by Jose Villegas Y Cordero, c. 1875, oil on canvas (digital image courtesy of Arabia Exotica)


Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty opium!'



Thermae Antoninianae, oil on canvas by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, c 1899 (image copied from Lawrence Alma-Tadema by R. J. Barrow)


These elements, as well as the previously discussed mythical characteristics, were also captured in many of the works by artists of the Art Nouveau movement, including Alphonse Mucha, who crowned a number of his girls and women with beautiful red poppies. Here are three of the images that I found in my copy of Alphonse Mucha: The Sprit of Art Nouveau by Victor Arwas, et al (Art Services International, in association with Yale University Press, Virginia, 1998), all of which evoke a desire in me to throw my cares to the wind and live out the rest of my days in some idyllic warm climate ...



Cover for Chasons d'aïleules, color lithograph by Alphonse Mucha, c 1897



Months of the year, by Alphonse Mucha, c 1899



Bières de la Meuse, color lithograph by Alphonse Mucha, c 1897


The last image contains striking characteristics that appear to be drawn directly from the goddess Demeter, including the wheat sheaves and poppies that are placed alongside each other in her crown - although this is a rather happy Demeter, who is perhaps sharing a pint with her daughter on a hot summer day. There is no hint of sadness in these women, and they are queens of their fertile realms, where beer is served up by poppy bedecked dames - what a truly dreamy life!



Wilkie Collins, c. 1871, photographic portrait by Elliott and Fry of 55 Baker Street (digital image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


Mucha, as well as many of the artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were, like Thompson, clearly influenced by the writers who had come before them. The easy acceptance of their use of Papaver somniferum in paintings and prints reflects the ease with which some men embraced continued and increased communion with Morpheus. The mid-nineteenth-century novelist Wilkie Collins is a good example of the latter, and I discovered this wonderful quote by him in our copy of Opium: The Poisoned Poppy by Michael Robson ...


'Who was the man who invented laudanum? I thank him from the bottom of my heart … I’ve had six delicious hours of oblivion; I’ve woken up with my mind composed; I’ve written a perfect little letter … and all through the modest little bottle of drops which I see on my bedroom chimney-piece at this moment. Drops, you are a darling! If I love nothing else, I love you!'


When I read this quote, I paired it up in my mind with this delightful illustration by John D. Batten for Field of Boliauns (1892), which I discovered in my copy of Brigid Peppin's Fantasy: The Golden Age of Fantastic Illustration ...





Terribly disrespectful of me to match up poor old Wilkie with this rather mischievous looking imp - but just look at the way he clutches at that pitcher that is surrounded by poppies - darling little drops indeed!

Of course there were also those writers who took a slightly more negative, but still whimsical approach to the use of poppies in their work. Of this group, it is L. Frank Baum who holds a very dear place in my heart, along with the wonderful illustrators who created the visual magic for his original editions. Anyone who has read The Wizard of Oz can in all likelihood guess the threads of the following branch in this dialogue - for who can ever forget Dorothy's harrowing adventure in 'The Deadly Poppy Field', and the brave and noble actions of her stalwart companions who rescued her from the fated sleep of oblivion. Here is an excerpt from that chapter, accompanied by the charming illustrations by W. W. Denslow (copied from my Reilly & Lee Co. 1956 edition of The Wizard of Oz) ...





'They now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the midst of a great meadow of poppies. Now it is well known that when there are many of these flowers together their odor is so powerful that anyone who breathes it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried away from the scent of the flowers he sleeps on and on forever. But Dorothy did not know this, nor could she get away from the bright red flowers that were everywhere about; so presently her eyes grew heavy and she felt she must sit down to rest and to sleep.

But the Tin Woodman would not let her do this.

“We must hurry and get back to the road of yellow brick before dark,” he said; and the Scarecrow agreed with him. So they kept walking until Dorothy could stand no longer. Her eyes closed in spite of herself and she forgot where she was and fell among the poppies, fast asleep.





“What shall we do?” asked the Tin Woodman.

“If we leave her here she will die,” said the Lion. “The smell of the flowers is killing us all. I myself can scarcely keep my eyes open and the dog is asleep already.”





It was true; Toto had fallen down beside his little mistress. But the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, not being made of flesh, were not troubled by the scent of the flowers.

“Run fast,” said the Scarecrow to the Lion, “and get out of this deadly flowerbed as soon as you can. We will bring the little girl with us, but if you should fall asleep you are too big to be carried.”

So the Lion aroused himself and bounded forward as fast as he could go. In a moment he was out of sight.

“Let us make a chair with our hands, and carry her,” said the Scarecrow. So they picked up Toto and put the dog in Dorothy’s lap, and then they made a chair with their hands for the seat and their arms for the arms and carried the sleeping girl between them through the flowers.





On and on they walked, and it seemed that the great carpet of deadly flowers that surrounded them would never end. They followed the bend of the river, and at last came upon their friend the Lion, lying fast asleep among the poppies. The flowers had been too strong for the huge beast and he had given up, at last, and fallen only a short distance from the end of the poppybed, where the sweet grass spread in beautiful green fields before them.

“We can do nothing for him,” said the Tin Woodman sadly; “for he is much too heavy to lift. We must leave him here to sleep on forever, and perhaps he will dream that he has found courage at last.”

“I’m sorry,” said the Scarecrow; “the Lion was a very good comrade for one so cowardly. But let us go on.”

They carried the sleeping girl to a pretty spot beside the river, far enough from the poppy field to prevent her breathing any more of the poison of the flowers, and here they laid her gently on the soft grass and waited for the fresh breeze to waken her.'


The beautiful images above, were created by W. W. Denslow for the original edition of The Wizard of Oz, the only Oz book illustrated by this artist. However, it was not the last time that fans of Baum's series of wonderful adventures would see the drowsy hues of sumptuous poppies. John R. Neill took over illustrating the world of Oz after Denslow's departure, and once the boy Tip is transformed into the lovely Princess Ozma of Oz, one is inundated by Art Nouveau inspired choices of couture and coiffure, including Ozma's trademark poppy trimmed crown. The following are some of my favorite images of her, all of which were scanned from my copy of the Reilly & Lee Co. edition of Ozma of Oz from the 1950s ...











And so the conclusion of this dream draws nigh, as poppy crowned girls and Morpheus himself smile on the unsuspecting visitor. There are so many other instances of poppy-inspired dreamscapes, but one is strongly advised not to visit them all in one go. Flanders fields will await their turn in another entry - only for the moment, beware the rich scent of sun soaked fields of red, for if you step into that realm you may fall under its spell of everlasting sleep. Poor Francis Thompson was never able to pull himself away from that web of dreams, and he goes to great lengths in The Poppy to poetically discuss this terrible impediment. Dream of sleep, dream of night, dream of death - the song of Morpheus drew him in and never let go ...


The Poppy (concluded) … by Francis Thompson

...

A child and man paced side by side,
Treading the skirts of eventide;
But between the clasp of his hand and hers
Lay, felt not, twenty wither’d years.

She turn’d, with the rout of her dusk South hair,
And saw the sleeping gipsy there;
And snatch’d and snapp’d it in swift child’s whim,
With – ‘Keep it, long as you live!’ – to him.

And his smile, as nymphs from their laving meres,
Trembled up from a bath of tears;
And joy, like a mew sea-rock’d apart,
Toss’d on the wave of his troubled heart.

For he saw what she did not see,
That – as kindled by its own fervency –
The verge shrivell’d inward smoulderingly:



Among the poppies by Jessie Wilcox Smith, c 1911 (digital image in personal collection, source unknown)


And suddenly ‘twixt his hand and hers
He knew the twenty wither’d years –
No flower, but twenty shrivell’d years.

‘Was never such thing until this hour,’
Low to his heart he said; ‘the flower
Of sleep brings wakening to me,
And of oblivion memory.’

‘Was never this thing to me,’ he said,
‘Though with bruised poppies my feet are red!’
And again to his own heart very low:
‘O child! I love, for I love and know;

‘But you, who love nor know at all
The diverse chambers in Love’s guest-hall,
Where some rise early, few sit long:
In how differing accents hear the throng
His great Pentecostal tongue;

‘Who know not love from amity,
Nor my reported self from me;
A fair fit gift is this, meseems,
You give – this withering flower of dreams.



Color lithograph of poppies by Alphonse Mucha, c 1902 (image copied from Alphonse Mucha: The Sprit of Art Nouveau by V. Arwas, et al)


‘O frankly fickle, and fickly true,
Do you know what the days will do to you?
To your Love and you what the days will do,
O frankly fickle, and fickly true?

‘You have loved me, Fair, three lives – or days:
‘Twill pass with the passing of my face.
But where I go, your face goes too,
To watch lest I play false to you.

‘I am but, my sweet, your foster-lover,
Knowing well when certain years are over
You vanish from me to another;
Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.

‘So, frankly fickle, and fickly true!
For my brief life-while I take from you
This token, fair and fit, meseems,
For me – this withering flower of dreams.’



Color lithograph of poppies by Alphonse Mucha, c 1902 (image copied from Alphonse Mucha: The Sprit of Art Nouveau by V. Arwas, et al)


The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,
Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:
The goodly grain and the sun-flush’d sleeper
The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.

I hang ‘mid men my needless head,
And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:
The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper
Time shall reap, but after the reaper
The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper!

Love! love! your flower of wither’d dream
In leavèd rhyme lies safe, I deem,
Shelter’d and shut in a nook of rhyme,
From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.

Love! I fall into the claws of Time:
But lasts within a leavèd rhyme
All that the world of me esteems –
My wither’d dreams, my wither’d dreams.



Night and Sleep by Evelyn Pickering de Morgan, c. 1878, oil on canvas (digital image courtesy of artst.org)


And so the dream concludes, 'strewn with time's dead flowers, bereft in deathly bloom'. The fields of red, white, purple and pink flowers stretch into the horizon as far as the eyes can see, and the man and the girl walk hand in hand into the haze of bittersweet smoke where they disappear into the shroud of Morpheus ... and the cowled figures chant, 'sweet dreams ... sweet dreams' - for the one who touches the hand of a god is never quite the same again, and should be blessed and perhaps pitied, but never cursed.



Illustration by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, c 1892, for King Poppy by Lord Lytton (image copied from Fantasy: The Golden Age of Fantastic Illustration by Brigid Peppin)