Mermaids

Another week has sped by and it's Tuesday, and time for our tags again. This week the theme is 'Mermaids and Water Babies'. This made me think of one of my fave poems from the time before I went to school, 'The Forsaken Merman' by Matthew Arnold. I was often at my Aunt's, and she was always willing to read this epic poem to me, over which I always cried copiously, and then begged her to read it again....Time seems to change tastes! It tells the sad tale of a merman who marries a human, and then she deserts him, and goes back to her world, with the little church on the shore, and leaves her children and husband sad and lonely...

Come, dear children, let us away;

Down and away below!

Now my brothers call from the bay,

Now the great winds shoreward blow,

Now the salt tides seaward flow;

Now the wild white horses play,

Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.

Children dear, let us away!

This way, this way! ....

Children dear, was it yesterday

(Call yet once) that she went away?

Once she sate with you and me,

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,

And the youngest sate on her knee.

She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,

When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.

She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;

She said: "I must go, to my kinsfolk pray

In the little grey church on the shore to-day.

'T will be Easter-time in the world—ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."

I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;

Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"

She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.

Children dear, was it yesterday?....

Okay, I won't bore you with the whole story, just say, it doesn't have a happy end - sob, sob!If you want to read more you can do so here.
For my tag I chose a painting from an Art Nouveau painter Howard Pyle.  (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)I have mounted the image onto some turqoise cardstock, and added some simple embellishments, which I think fit well to the picture. The picture shows a mermaid rescuing a shipwrecked man from drowning.  The theme shows opposing forces in nature; strong versus weak, land versus sea,  human versus mermaid etc. The painter died before he could complete the painting, but I still like it!

Have a lovely day, take care, and thanks for visiting! Valerie