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FOR LOVE OF BEASTS
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Galsworthy writes to and about animals, in this collection, but only in the first few - the rest is about his love of land, beauty of nature, and his travels. Perhaps the title is kept nevertheless because his love of animals was relevant to him, but keeping only those poems would make this collection far too small to publish.
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CONTENTS
PRAYER FOR GENTLENESS TO ALL CREATURES
TO MY DOG
LOST!
DONKEYS
NEVER GET OUT!
PITIFUL
AKIN
IMPRESSIONS
SILVER POINT
BOTTICELLI’S ‘THE BIRTH OF VENUS’
BOTTICELLI’S TRIMAVERA’
THE CUP
AUTUMN
BY THE SEA PROMENADE
THE FRANCE FLOWER
SWEET OATH IN MALLORCA
AT VALDEMOSA
NOVEMBER
MERLE
DESERT SONG
AT SUNSET
THE PASS OF THE SONG
AUTUMN
DREAM HOUSE
FLOWERS
THE NATIVE STAR
TO LIBERTY
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PRAYER FOR GENTLENESS TO ALL CREATURES
"And to our hearts the rapture bring
"Of love for every living thing;"
Including those slaughtered regularly, without any mercy?
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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TO MY DOG
But for the title, one would be under the impression it's addressed to a lover, a child, a parent!
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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LOST!
About a lost dog.
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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DONKEYS
Very moving, and yet -
"WHEN to God’s Fondouk the donkeys are taken —
"Donkeys of Barbary, Sicily, Spain —
"If peradventure the Deity waken
"He shall not easily slumber again.
"Where in the sweet of the straw they have laid them,
"Broken and dead of their burdens and sores,
"He, for a change, shall remember He made them
"(One of the best of His numerous chores),
"Order from someone a sigh of repentance —
"Donkeys of Syria, Araby, Greece —
"Over the Fondouk distemper the sentence:
"“For God’s own forsaken — the Stable of Peace!”"
Very moving, and yet - nary a thought for those slaughtered regularly, even as their milk is taken for consumption for lifelong sustenance of humans after babyhood.
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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NEVER GET OUT!
"I KNEW a little Serval cat —"
"From bar to bar she’d turn and turn,
"And in her eyes a fire would burn —"
"But if by hap a ray of sun
Came shining in her cage, she’d run
"And sit upon her haunches where
"Into the open she could stare,
"And with the free that sunlight share —"
"That catling’s jungle heart forlorn
"Will die as wild as it was born..."
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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PITIFUL
About the treatment meted out to animals who aren't pets in West - and horrors thereof, Galsworthy catalogues all but those actually slaughtered, regularly, for no fault of those thus killed.
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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AKIN
"But if his sentient ardour flow
"For things that pad or fly,
"With you and me — oh! surely know
"He hath affinity.
"America and England breed
"Those who are brothers still,
"For that the beasts they love, and heed
"Bird music on the hill!"
All but those slaughtered regularly??!!!
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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IMPRESSIONS
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SILVER POINT
Severe, lonely beauty of midwinter of Nordic latitudes.
"Every silver twig up-curled,
"Not a budding leaf unfurled,
"Not a breath to fan the day!
"World aspiring and severe,
"Not a hum of fly or bee,
"Not a song, and not a cry,
"Not a perfume stealing by —
"Stillest moment of the year!"
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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BOTTICELLI’S ‘THE BIRTH OF VENUS’
He brings it all alive, if one has seen it -
"THE Spring wind fans her hair,
"And after her fly little waves;
"Her feet are shod in pearly shoen,
"And down her foam-white breast do shine
"Petals encarnadine. Her eyes are deaths to care,
"Her eyes of love are tender caves.
"The blossoms blowing on the trees —
"The leafy Spring’s enchanted stir —
"The humming of the golden bees —
"Are but the voice of her!"
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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BOTTICELLI’S TRIMAVERA’
"HANDMAIDS of the Queen of Love!
"Earth grows white with stars;"
"You alone do dream!
"Maidens of the Queen of Flowers!
"Trees hang orange lamps;
"All the winds are pollen blowing;
"Through the failing golden light"
"Earth below and skies above
"Teach the hour of sweet unresting: —
"All the world is Love!"
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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THE CUP
This ought to have been part of the Devon poems -
"Here is my Cup;
"A fairy soul,
"With the sun all gold on her curves,
"And the moon milk-white in her bowl!
"As twilight dark,
"Like dew a-shine,
"The goblet she
"Of ev’ry wine!"
The Cup is the very Earth, if it isn't the land of Devonshire!
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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AUTUMN BY THE SEA
So different, this autumn, from those we've known - the brilliant sapphire blue skies and bright gold sun, crisp cool breezes and brilliant foliage of reds and golds, of autumn that we have known, in New England!
"And gentle heat’s gold pathway fails
"In autumn’s opal smoke;
"Then long we’ll watch the journey of the soft half-moon —
"A gold-bright moth slow-spinning up the sky;
"And know the dark flight — all too soon —
"Of land-birds wheeling by."
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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PROMENADE
He sets out to write of his love walking to him in the park, and does, but the beauty he writes of is of spring in England - and very familiar to those who have seen it, in England or Germany, France or Austria.
"The little bushes puffing green,
"The candles pale that light the chestnut-trees,
"The tulip and the jonquil spies;
The sunshine and the sudden dark;"
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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THE FRANCE FLOWER
All too familiar, this, loving the beauty of another land despite loving ones own homeland -
"I love well my English home;
"Yet far thoughts do stealing come
"To throng me like honey-bees,
"Till far flowers my fancy sees —
"’Tis almond against the snows,
"And gentian, and mountain rose,
"And Iris, in purple bright —
"The France flower, the flower of light!"
And the last line sheds light on just how cloudy his homeland is - but there's another little detail before these lines, where he mentions "print frocks"! So that was quite new then!
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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SWEET OATH IN MALLORCA
Galsworthy doesn't tell what oath, exactly, but describes the enchantment of beauty of Mallorca -
"Under the sun among the almond flowers,"
- and more.
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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AT VALDEMOSA
(MALLORCA, JANUARY 2, 1930)
(MALLORCA, JANUARY 2, 1930)
He certainly brings the beauty alive -
"LEMONS and roses — guide-book said —
"A courtyard, and a simple bed
"Or two, for that romantic pair!"
"But with such wonders for your sight,
"Such scatter of the stars at night,
"Such sunset light upon the hills,
"What need you reck of little ills?"
"The almond, winter-blossoming,
"The buds not waiting for the Spring,
"The olive trees, the tinkling bells
"Of sheep among the asphodels.
"What with the Paradise down there,
"The scent of lemons on the air,
"And all the music that you scored —
"Chopin! I know you were not bored!"
Did Chopin recommend it personally to Galsworthy?
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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NOVEMBER
November he's captured well, and it would seem very similar to that of New England, too, until he says -
"Not till the Spring recapture
"Joy as it flits along,
"Shall we regain the rapture
"Either of scent or song!"
No, in New England the snow brought a festive, elevating beauty that lasted even into spring, often snowfall covering up the earlier blossoms of spring!
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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MERLE
This would make it seem December is dreary in England, unless he speaks of old age -
"THE sea and sky are grey —
"As with the grief of those who’ve mourned;
"Yet through this drear December day
"A lonely merle to song has turned.
"Brave bird, for you no fears!
"Though to the sun you’re strange — as we,
"Across the waste of these last years
"Bereft of all hilarity.
"Then, bird! be voice for all
"The sad who have forgotten song.
"Shake far that trilling lift and fall
"Of notes, and take our hearts along!"
But no, this must have been of war years, of WWI.
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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DESERT SONG
True son of England, Galsworthy writes of traversing the desert of Santa Fé, and missing rain.
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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AT SUNSET
"I’ve seen the beautiful, so clear —
"And it has gone to the heart of me;
"So there’ll be magic ever near
"To me, remembering Tennessee."
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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THE PASS OF THE SONG
He's titled it Pass Of The Song, switching the two words to describe the landscape - it's Song Of The Pass to begin with.
"Lone and far, lone and far,
"Till the eye to the summit wins,
"And below, the plains and the mountains are,
"And the lilt of the song begins."
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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AUTUMN
The bleak landscape he paints in this could only be the Southwest of U.S..
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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DREAM HOUSE
First couple of lines sound like a town dwelling -
"DOWN on our house good shelter falls
"From those high neighbouring white walls,"
But the rest, including
" ... sun’s hot eye
"Cools in the lime-trees, down the sky;"
sounds like his house in Dartmoor.
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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FLOWERS
"In my heart the wind is roaming
"Wild, the grass is parched with sadness.
"Spring! my lovely Spring, come soon!"
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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THE NATIVE STAR
The poet has travelled wide, extensively,
"Yet craved for a salt heaven wide
Above the English sea."
has seen beautiful lands,
"I have been mazed and mazed again
"Where California glows,
"And marvelled at a flowered Spain —
"Her orange and her rose; I’ve dreamed
"Japan, all cherry white;
"Yet would I liefer see
"The Springtime stars of blossom light
"An English apple tree."
And he wonders
"And yet my heart has longed
"For English sound and scent and scene
"Though all my reason knows
"They’ll never be, have never been
"Fit to compare with those."
And answers
"Be not dismayed that each is born
"Under his native star I”"
True! So why go colonizing others' lands, only to loot and deprive them, leaving the sons and daughters of the soil to starve to death??!!!
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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TO LIBERTY
"Bird, my bird, I hear thee singing
"Over the waste, over the foam,
"Clear and high, the far white-winging
"Song of Freedom, flighting home!"
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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August 07, 2021 - August 07, 2021.
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