Edward Blair Wilkens

Camille Pissaro, Farm in Montfoucault under the snow ( 1874-76)

Portrait of an Unknown Lady. William Larkin, c.1615.

Jardin de Bagatelle, near Paris France.

Georg Achen - "Interior" (1907)

Max Ernst, Solitary Tree and Conjugal Trees, 1940, Oil on canvas.

A Flow of Sunlight

(c) gif by riverwindphotography, July 2025

John Singer Sargent - "A Dinner Table at Night" (1884)

Ivan Fedorovich Choultsé - "The Ruined Temple of Kom Ombo, Egypt"

Joseph Wright of Derby - "A lighthouse on fire at Night"

Georg Friedrich Kersting - "Study with gentleman at a desk" (1811)

Landscape with Sleeping Shepherd Boy (1858-60) - Franz von Lenbach (1836-1904)

'Poe Walking on the High Bridge' by Bernard Jacob Rosenmeyer, 1930

Lake View (1901) - Akseli Gallen-Kallela

World Chess Champion Robert James “Bobby” Fischer (1943-2008), 1962. Photographed by Carl Mydans for LIFE, NYC.

The Shepherd's Calendar: August (Excerpt)

by John Clare

Art by Camille Pissaro

The fields are all alive with busy noise

Of labours sounds and insects humming joys

Some oer the glittering sickle sweating stoop

Startling full oft the partridge coveys up

Some oer the rustling scythe go bending on

And shockers follow where their toils have gone

First turning swaths to wither in the sun

Where mice from terrors dangers nimbly run

Leaving their tender young in fears alarm

Lapt up in nests of chimbled grasses warm

And oft themselves for safty search in vain

From the rude boy or churlish hearted swain

Who beat their stone chinkd forks about the groun(

And spread an instant murder all around

Tho oft the anxious maidens tender prayer

Urges the clown their little lives to spare

Who sighs while trailing the long rake along

At scenes so cruel and forgets her song

And stays wi love his murder aiming hand

Some ted the puffing winnow down the land

And others following roll them up in heaps

While cleanly as a barn door beesome sweeps

The hawling drag wi gathering weeds entwind

And singing rakers end the toils behind

When the sun stoops to meet the western sky

And noons hot hours have wanderd weary bye

They seek an awthorn bush or willow tree

Or stouk or shock where coolest shadows be

Where baskets heapd and unbroachd bottles lye

Which dogs in absence watchd with wary eye

To catch their breath awhile and share the boon

Which beavering time alows their toil at noon

All gathering sit on stubbs or sheaves the hour

Where scarlet poppys linger still in flower

Stript in his shirt the hot swain drops adown

And close beside him in her unpind gown

Next to her favoured swain the maiden steals

Blushing at kindness which her love reveals

Who makes a seat for her of things around

And drops beside her on the naked ground

#OTD 3rd August 1553

Mary Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VIII & Katherine of Aragon, triumphantly entered the City of London as Queen

The plot to place the protestant Lady Jane Grey on the throne had been thwarted and Mary enjoyed her reception as her subjects cheered their rightful sovereign

Mary had been acknowledged as Henry's heir to the throne but then cast aside and declared illegitimate, forced to serve the new heir, her baby sister Elizabeth

Both girls having been declared illegitimate were then returned to the line of succession behind Edward in the Act of Succession of 1543

Edward naming the Lady Jane as his heir forced this determined 37 year old to raise an army. Yet she was beloved by the people and Mary entered London without opposition with no bloodshed

Image: A depiction of Queen Mary I, Princess Elizabeth by her side riding into London in 1553 by John Byam Liston Shaw