The bird to others flew, illustration to "A Love Song"
Abbey moved to England in 1878 to research and produce illustrations to historical verse for Harper's and settled there permanently in 1883. This drawing comes from a series that responds to "A Love Song" by the British seveenth-century poet George Wither. Two men sit beside a young woman on a bench near a river– with the downcast figure at left representing the narrator who bemoans love's inconstancy in the related text:
'Twas I that paid for all things,
'Twas others dranke the wine;
I cannot now recall things,
Live but a foole to pine:
'Twas I that beat the bush,
The bird to others flew;
For she, alasse! hath left me.
Reproduced as a wood engraving, the image appeared in Harper's "New Montly Magazine," vol. 75, no. 449, October 1887, p. 745 and in "Old Songs, with Drawings by Edwin A. Abbey & Alfred Parsons," Harper & Brothers, 1889 (see MMA 21.36.112), p. 12.
'Twas I that paid for all things,
'Twas others dranke the wine;
I cannot now recall things,
Live but a foole to pine:
'Twas I that beat the bush,
The bird to others flew;
For she, alasse! hath left me.
Reproduced as a wood engraving, the image appeared in Harper's "New Montly Magazine," vol. 75, no. 449, October 1887, p. 745 and in "Old Songs, with Drawings by Edwin A. Abbey & Alfred Parsons," Harper & Brothers, 1889 (see MMA 21.36.112), p. 12.
Artwork Details
- Title: The bird to others flew, illustration to "A Love Song"
- Artist: Edwin Austin Abbey (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1852–1911 London)
- Author: Related author George Wither (British, Bentworth, Hampshire 1588–1667 London)
- Date: 1887
- Medium: Pen and ink on cardboard
- Dimensions: sheet: 19 3/8 x 15 in. (49.2 x 38.1 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
- Object Number: 29.100.927
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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