Hi Friends! Today I would like to share the Poem "English Words" which is written by V.K.Gokak. This poem's appreciation and figures of speech will be asked in the TNPSC group exams.
English Words
Speech that came like leech-craft
And killed us almost, bleeding us white!
You bleached our souls soiled with impurities.
You bathed our hearts amid tempestuous seas
Of a purer, drearier, delight.
O tongues of fire! You came devouring
Forests of nightshade, creepers that enmesh,
Trees that never remembered to grow,
And shrubs that were but thornmills in our flesh.
You were the dawn, and sunlight filled the spaces
Where owls were hovering.
O winged seeds! You crossed the furrowed seas
To nestle in the warm and silent earth.
Like a golden swarm of fireflies you came
Pining for a new agony, a new birth.
You blossomed into a nascent loveliness.
You ripened into nectar in fruit-jars
That hung like clustered stars.
O winging words! Like homing bees you borrow
Grown murmurous, the honey of delight,
Pollened within our hearts the coming morrow,
Sweetened within our souls for aeons bright:
You kindle in the far corners of the earth
The music of an ever-deepening chant:
The burthen of a waneless, winterless spring,
The gospel of an endless blossoming.
Fathomless words, with Indo-Aryan blood
Tingling in your veins.
The spoils of ages, global merchandise
Mingling in your strains!
You pose the cosmic riddles:
In the beginning was the Word
And the Word was God.
The Word is in the middle
And the Word is Man.
In the end will be the Word
And the Word will be God in Man.
And killed us almost, bleeding us white!
You bleached our souls soiled with impurities.
You bathed our hearts amid tempestuous seas
Of a purer, drearier, delight.
O tongues of fire! You came devouring
Forests of nightshade, creepers that enmesh,
Trees that never remembered to grow,
And shrubs that were but thornmills in our flesh.
You were the dawn, and sunlight filled the spaces
Where owls were hovering.
O winged seeds! You crossed the furrowed seas
To nestle in the warm and silent earth.
Like a golden swarm of fireflies you came
Pining for a new agony, a new birth.
You blossomed into a nascent loveliness.
You ripened into nectar in fruit-jars
That hung like clustered stars.
O winging words! Like homing bees you borrow
Grown murmurous, the honey of delight,
Pollened within our hearts the coming morrow,
Sweetened within our souls for aeons bright:
You kindle in the far corners of the earth
The music of an ever-deepening chant:
The burthen of a waneless, winterless spring,
The gospel of an endless blossoming.
Fathomless words, with Indo-Aryan blood
Tingling in your veins.
The spoils of ages, global merchandise
Mingling in your strains!
You pose the cosmic riddles:
In the beginning was the Word
And the Word was God.
The Word is in the middle
And the Word is Man.
In the end will be the Word
And the Word will be God in Man.
V.K.Gokak
| S.No | Hard Words | Meanings |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leech craft | ancient medical remedy of using leeches to remove the impure blood. |
| 2 | bleached | made white |
| 3 | tempestuous | violent |
| 4 | drearier | gloomer |
| 5 | devouring | consuming large quantities |
| 6 | enmesh | to catch, as if, in a net |
| 7 | furrowed | deep and wavy |
| 8 | nestle | settle comfortably |
| 9 | nascent | beginning to develop |
| 10 | homing | of the ability to find one's way home |
| 11 | aeons | ages, infinitely long periods |
| 12 | burthen | burden |
| 13 | gospel | good |
| 14 | waneless | not growing smaller |
| 15 | Fathomless | too deep to be measured or understood |
Figures of Speech
Personification
O Winged seeds you crossed the furrowed sear
To nestle in the warm and silent earth
Allusion
In the end will be the word
And the Word will be gold in the man
The allusion is from "The Bible"
Simile
Speech that came like leak craft
O winging words like homing bees you borrow
like a Golden swarm of fireflies
Metaphor
You bleached our souls soiled with impurities
O tongues of fire! you came devouring
O Winged seeds you crossed the furrowed sear
To nestle in the warm and silent earth
Allusion
In the end will be the word
And the Word will be gold in the man
The allusion is from "The Bible"
Simile
Speech that came like leak craft
O winging words like homing bees you borrow
like a Golden swarm of fireflies
Metaphor
You bleached our souls soiled with impurities
O tongues of fire! you came devouring