"We need the universe to live again, so that we can live with it. A conquered universe, a dead Pan, leaves us nothing to live with. You have to abandon the conquest, before Pan will live.” ~ D.H. Lawrence, "Pan in America"
The significance of the Lawrencean Pan: "Lawrence's search for god, and his search for the vivid life of the body here on earth, both led him to Pan." It is further specified that, although Pantheism was not "a serious option as a religion" for his contemporaries, "Lawrence took it upon himself to make it so; not just an option, but a necessity for sanity and survival.” ~ Keith Sagar: D.H. Lawrence: Life Into Art
Thematic Images for Summer Solstice or Midsummer Celebrations
Image:
Thematic Images for Summer Solstice or Midsummer Fire Celebrations
Image:
For the GS's exposition on the dating of the Misummer's Eve festival, click here
Thematic Images for Summer Solstice Stonehenge Sunrise Celebrations
Image:
Thematic Images for Other Summer Solstice Sunrise Sites
Image:
Thematic Images for Summer Solstice Sunrise & Sunset
Image:
Thematic Images for Midsummer & the Summer Season
Song:
How sweet I roam'd from field to field
How sweet I roam'd from field to field, And tasted all the summer's pride, 'Till I the prince of love beheld, Who in the sunny beams did glide!
He shew'd me lilies for my hair, And blushing roses for my brow; He led me through his gardens fair, Where all his golden pleasures grow....
~ William Blake
O thou who passest thro’ our valleys in Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat That flames from their large nostrils! thou, O Summer, Oft pitchedst here thy golden tent, and oft Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld With joy, thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.
Beneath our thickest shades we oft have heard Thy voice, when noon upon his fervid car Rode o’er the deep of heaven: beside our springs Sit down, and in our mossy valleys, on Some bank beside a river clear, throw thy Silk draperies off, and rush into the stream: Our valleys love the Summer in his pride.
Our bards are famed who strike the silver wire: Our youth are bolder than the southern swains: Our maidens fairer in the sprightly dance: We lack not songs, nor instruments of joy, Nor echoes sweet, nor waters clear as heaven, Nor laurel wreaths against the sultry heat.
"To Summer" by William Blake (Poetical Sketches, 1783)
