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EARLY POEMS:
The Poetry of John Galsworthy,
by John Galsworthy.
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His beautiful imagery, steeped equally in beauty of nature and realities of life, are far more so in his poetry than in his prose. For, when need to make it simpler for comprehension of others has taken flight, as it can when writing poetry, his imagery soars and takes flight.
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EARLY POEMS
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The early poems, mostly about love, beauty, et al, are - one feels - about the lovers hiding out at Dartmoor.
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CONTENTS
REMINDER
ERRANTRY
COURAGE
TRUE DEEDS
LOVE
LOVE (EARLIER VERSION)
BEAUTY
ACCEPTATION
SERENITY
DEDICATION.
THE SEEDS OF LIGHT
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REMINDER
Budding of spiritual awakening.
"EACH star, to rise, and sink, and fade —
"Each bird that sings its song and sleeps —
"Each spark of spirit fire that leaps
"Within me — of One Flame are made!"
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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ERRANTRY
Spiritual, but slightly different this time - on Earth, in world of humanity, using the spirit so to speak, for humanity!
"COME! Let us lay a lance in rest,
"And tilt at windmills under a wild sky!
"For who would live so petty and unblest
"That dare not tilt at something ere he die;
"Rather than, screened by safe majority,
"Preserve his little life to little ends,
"And never raise a rebel cry!"
And more -
"The echo of our challenging
"Sets swinging all the bells of ribaldry,
"And yet those other hidden bells that ring
"The faint and wondering chimes of sympathy"
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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COURAGE
He captures the essence-
"The ruddy watch-fire of cold winter days,
"We steal its comfort, lift our weary swords,
"And on. For faith — without it — has no sense;
"And love to wind of doubt and tremor sways;
"And life for ever quaking marsh must tread."
"And when Death calls across his shadowy fields-
"Dying, it answers: “Here! I am not dead!”"
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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TRUE DEEDS
Beautiful imagery,
"There is a Lantern of true, silent deeds
"Swinging refulgent in the spacious air,"
"’Tis the presiding sun at every birth,
"The soft consoling moon at every death;
"And in the middle watches of our life
"What is it but the one sweet single star,
"Whose twinkle, like the laughter of dear thoughts,
"Upon the feeble vadings of our hearts
"Sheds ever rays of tender irony!"
But it's unclear if he refers to human "true deeds", or gives it that name in referring to Divine.
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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LOVE
Millions of poets and others have attempted describing it, and Galsworthy is different! He doesn't turn to roses or stars, but every bit described here is so true!
"O LOVE! — that love which comes so stealthily,
"And takes us up, and twists us as it will —
"What fever’d hours of agony ‘twill bring!
"How oft we wake and cry:
"“God set me free Of love — to never love again!” And still
"We fall, and clutch it by the knees, and cling
"And press our lips — and so, once more are glad!
"And if it go, or if it never come,
"Through what a grieving wilderness of pain
"We travel on! In prisons stripped of light
"We blindly grope, and wander without home.
"The friendless winds that sweep across the plain —
"The beggars meeting us at silent night —
"Than we, are not more desolate and sad!"
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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LOVE (EARLIER VERSION)
The earlier version isn't lesser, but quite the contrary, has a higher flight in the very first few lines, and is far above the usually understood concept of love - did Galsworthy not realise his mind was grasping a reality far higher?
"LIKE lights that pass, each motion of the mind
"Flies through the world, seeking its fellow thought;
"And if but in the twinkling of his days
"A man shall chance to meet the kindred one —
"Then happiness! No more he needs to burn
"Beside the fire of dearth that pipe, whose smoke
"Prays to the heedless stars of lonely men."
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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BEAUTY
"If we but catch the glimmer of her wing,
"Then witchery! We needs must follow her!
"If never on our path she comes along —
"Then are we lost, for always we are blind."
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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ACCEPTATION
It's unclear if this is about waiting for his love until she appears.
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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SERENITY
"In heaven’s field
"Moon’s scimitar
"Is drawn to shield
"One dreaming star."
Why the similar in describing serenity? Because, while the lovers hid at the remote Wingstone in Dartmoor, he needed to shield her?
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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DEDICATION.
Having read it, it's unclear if this is English at all, or a rose in a private garden in a home in Persia of yore, or a beauty in Spain in an enclosed garden behind high walls of her home.
"THINE is the solitude that rare flowers know,
"Whose beauty holds the charm of secrecy;
"Of all the flowers that in the garden grow,
"None other has thy sweet supremacy.
"For thine’s the oldest secret in the world:
"How to be loved, and still to keep apart —
"Flower full blown, and bud not yet unfurled —
"Gold-fortuned I, whose very breath thou art!"
But then, the reserve of an English mindset would do just as well for a wall!
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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THE SEEDS OF LIGHT
Beautiful and more, most of it.
"ONCE of a mazy afternoon, beside that summer sea,
"I watched a shoal of sunny beams come swimming close to me.
"Each was a whited candle flamelet, flickering in air;
"Each was a silver daffodil astonied to be there;
"Each was a diving summer star, its brightness come to lave;"
"And while I sat, and while I dreamed, beside that summer sea,
"There came the fairest thought of all that ever came to me;
"The tiny lives of tiny men, no more they seemed to mean
"Than one of those sweet seeds of light sown on that water green;"
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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August 05, 2021 - August 05, 2021.
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