When Desi opened Yahoo.mail IN box this morn, this greAting/advisory from rockybru was a pleasant surprise -- answering an ancient but perennial green request forwarded by Desi's Commenters, at a Post aMore than two years ago! ::rocky has left a new comment on your post "Love Is a Many-Splendour'd Thing":: (I shall reprise the Post'smajor portion towards the end if thou art patient, and buy Desi and ROCKY tehtarik laced with aMore:)
"Pleasant" was an understatement, for fellow journalist Ahiruddin Atan horseying @rockybru.blogspot.com sent "us" an exhilarating piece of poem much sougt by Malaysians who have fond memories of an honourable and revered judge. With judges and lawyers so much/mush in the news today, shalt we just pause and say a silent prayer that more such "GOoD" men shall arise on the Malaysian landscape to take us back to the days of pride and glory of the Judiciary, and Splendour in the Grass?
Okay, ENJOY!
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7 comment(s):
Very beautiful pieces which melt my heart. I recall some beautiful love poems written by the late Tan Sri Eusoffe Abdoolcader dedicated to his late wife. The late Tan Sri took his own life tragically to join his wife in heaven a few years later. I couldn't find any archives of his poems in the nett. Does anybody know where I can find them?
By Ginger, at 8:31 PM
Hi Ginger:
Yes, I remember reading tose poems by the late Justice too. (Dedications via ad in local newspapers ... I shed a tear or 2 reading them...)
Physically small in size,(I'm honoured to have met him personally as a journalist/press officer then) the late Tan Sri was "towering" in stature, well admired by fellow judges for his "exquisite" (literary) judgements!
Any readers have access to Eusoffe's poems -- Desiderata will be honoured with your help in sharing them! I promise a teh tarik?
By desiderata, at 10:04 PM
hmmm Romeo and Juliet, huh~ very different from my piece. A fantastic variation of perspective on this topic :) you write good~
By def-unct, at 4:08 PM
dear Lobak:
If I have ginger and lobak for company
A wonderful evening of soup and song we'll cook up in glee
Shakespeare ould keep love aglow
Wordsmiths like thee&ginger will my good life grow
Thanks for thy soup for the soul.
By desiderata, at 11:56 PM
searching for those Tan Sri's poem as well.His affection for his wife astound me,such simplicity and yet so tragic
By DareDevil8, at 11:23 PM
_______________S'x tehtraik to latest input by rocky to roll over! ________
the poem by the late tan sri..i remember reading it from the star newspaper and i can memorise most of the lines..i guess so..originally in latin version n english as well..let me try if i can still remember..
'my dearest darling, half of soul, light of my life and jewel of all wives..
i think of thee, of thee and yet of thee,
like thee there never yet can ever be..thine two intoxicating eyes i miss, and thy cheeks and lips i used to kiss..
if helen of troy were clad in the beauty of thousand stars, then thou gentle as evening air art in mine eyes, as shine the moon among the lesser fires,
of all the queens that ever lived, i chose thee to rule me, mine very own halena (his wife's name), my one and only, to the very marrow thou will see i love ye,
o' how in the world am i to live without thee?
those r d beautiful lines and i guess i got correctly..i felt obliged when all of you requested for that poem..all the while i tot i m d only one who really touched by that lines..hope it would be helpful..regards, MJ http://profiles.friendster.com/rockyjulkarnain
By rocky, at 8:04 AM
c u guys..n i guess u all must be lawyers..so long my learned friends..rgds, Muammar Julkarnain Esq., from beeston leeds UK
By rocky, at 8:11 AM
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Nostalgia extract from June, 2005~~~~~~~
Desiderata.english
Love is a common theme of poets and playrights, and why not? This many-splendour’d thing called “love” is a constant companion in our daily lives, from our Birth nursed on Mother’s love, through teenage innocent “first love” experience, then later to the more complicated and convoluted affairs of adults -- involving lovers’ quarrels, triangular fistfights, consuming forbidden fruits and being consumed by their aftermath, often led the green-eyed monster to tragedy and Death.
Many of us have enjoyed watching Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) performed on stage or at the cinema or via TV. Indeed, there have been variations of this great love story by the Bard, including Spanish, Chinese, and even a Malay, adaptations which I had seen on television. Most could easily associate the lines which encapsulate the tragedy of the play:
“What’s in a name?
That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."
Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet meet and fall in love in Shakespeare's lyrical tale of "star-cross'd" lovers, unfortunately hailing from two warring families. Here Juliet tells Romeo that a name is an artificial and meaningless convention, and that she loves the person who is called "Montague", not the Montague name or family. Romeo valiantly rejects his family name and vows, as Juliet asks, to "deny (his) father" and instead be "new baptized" as Juliet's lover.
There are certain occasions when love-lorn teenagers (the sender) would “borrow” the works of great poets to convey their feelings to their love partners (the recipient). Those informed in English literature would know of the great love story of Robert Browning (1812-1889) and his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). Many can easily recite some lines from the following:
How much do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
The last two lines form the defining climax which telescopes all the preceding expressions into a gem of a conclusion -- what many star-cross’d lovers would have felt and would have been proud to have said it in Browning’s unique way. It is again another human emotion as perennial as the grass – true love that gives forth a sworn, undying devotion of one human being to another. But common mortals like us often expressed in prose via cliches such as: I’ll love you till the end of time; I’ll follow you till the end of the earth, or I’ll love you until the end of the world; I’d give up my life for you; ... the list could go on and on, but none will ever come close enough to Browning’s immortal closing.
And from another of her well quoted poems, a stanza is reproduced here:
If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
“I love her for her smile – her look – her way
Of speaking gently – for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day” ...
And from the other significant half, Robert Browning comes:
Love
So the year’s done with!
(Love me for ever!)
All March begun with,
April’s endeavour;
May-wreaths that bound me
June needs must sever;
Now snows fall round me,
Quenching’ June’s fever –
(Love me for ever!)
So love is a common theme in poetry in whatever language, and why not? We humans need love as much as we need air and water to survive, from the day we were born until the day we die, that’s an inescapable truth. Love is the first emotion that a baby would encounter on entering this world, for the mother’s caressing arms would have been the child’s first human experience, and it is one full of motherly love and care. So throughout life, a human being is fed on love – maybe of various kinds, ranging from parent, puppy, unrequited, sweetheart, spouse, between a gay couple, to intoxicating “first love” between teenagers, to stolen “love”, or lust, for the married man (woman too, in this age of equality!) in the arms of a secret mistress (or Cassanova)!
Rhythm and rhyme are characteristic in successful songs, the lyrics of some are so well composed they indeed qualify as “poetry”. Those in this league include compositions by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, like “Sound of Silence” (And in the naked light I saw/ Ten thousand people maybe more …) and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (When you’re weary, feeling small/ When tears are in your eyes/ I’ll dry them all/ I’m on your side… ), and of course, innumerable ones by (the late) John Lennon and (Sir) Paul McCartney of The Beatles. For me, from childhood the lines from Beautiful Dreamer by Stephen Foster have indelibly been etched in my mind, and I reproduce here two stanzas of what I consider one of the best love poems ever composed:
Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me
Starlight and dew-drops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull’d by the moonlight have all pass’d away.
Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life’s busy throng –
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
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