Herbert Draper

He's another one of my numerous - I admit - favourite painters, famous for depicting mythological scenes from ancient Greece.

The Foam Sprite

Lamia

Ulysses and the Sirens

Il Fiorno e la Stella del Tramonto

Study for Autumn

Insomnia

The nights would not let me sleep;
the daylight blinded me.
I am left to stagnate, vegetate
and to regress.

Purge my mind from skin to bones,
disrobe me from it:

for such thoughts I have;

of the grotesque and the deplorable
that would consume me whole and alive.

Would that I could be empty breasted again -
breathe freely as though the particles
of air would not choke me to death.
And my heart of flesh and blood
does not weigh like gold.

Yet the hellish din would abide, issuing
from lips burned black of thirst
to murmur the most egregious words
from which rang the ugly truth.

The Fall

I'm plummeting. Through a depth that only nightmare can fathom. An emptiness so perfect we can't conceive of. And I'm falling fast.