Poets seek in poems, a truth that's yet to be:
to catch those glories half-formed in the mind,
those tantalising visions which we see
for fleeting seconds; fear may never find
again; yet leave a presence in the air,
the evanescent substance of a dream,
like half-remembered, half-forgotten care,
but known to be more real than they seem;
like friendly ghosts who share our rooms awhile
and conjure memories of their treasured kind:
a scent; a taste; a light; an echoed smile
from knowledge of some farther truth in mind:
O these are angels, heralds of the whole;
a golden rain that showers the dreaming soul.
Wonderful sonnet, Michael. I was wondering 'what's the good of catching a fleeting glimpse of something', and then you answered that. You really convey wonderfully a subtle understanding. The word 'dreaming' threw me off for a second, it seemed to lessen what you had spent 13 lines establishing as really important-by suddenly bringing 'only dreaming' to my mind. I know that's not what you MEANT by 'dreaming' there, you meant 'creating'. I'm not sure if this momentary 'dip' of mine was just a fluke, or if that word can really be improved. Quibble, quibble!
Wow! There is a Romantic element in your poetry. I can hear echoes of Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey' in this- like a spiritualist seeking the ever elusive truth! 'feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love'
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Dreaming is the state between sleep and waking - a two-way state, where one is either forsaking reality for the dream, or waking from sleep to reality. It's rather an ambivalent term, I'm afraid, in Western thought! I'd like to think art, poetry, is the waking dream! hmmm...