Deserted Village

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These were thy charms sweet village: sports like these

With sweet succession, taught even toil to please:

These round thy bowers their chearful influence shed,

These were thy charms - But all these charms are fled.




Above lines struck me as exceptionally sad; I don't know why exactly.

From The Deserted Village (1770) by Oliver Goldsmith

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While searching for an appropriate representation of The Deserted Village I came across this jpeg. I had to share it with you. It strikes not so much a sad, mournful tone with me, as a nightmarish one. Perhaps if we saw it under a blue sky, aware of the barren fields surrounding it and pale mountains in the distance; that might be more in keeping with my feelings about Goldsmith's poem (which I've printed out but do not have the energy and focus to go through at the moment). Still, I find the black-and-white picture quite unsettling and almost hypnotic. More a set of toothless skulls lined up under the baleful eye of something terrible, something cyclopedean that sees you. More than a few horrifying short story ideas can erupt from the psyche after long and thoughtful study of this image ...

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