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- All that I am is staked on words.
Bless their meaning, Lord, or I become
Slave to the heavy, hollow, mindless drum.
Make me the maker of my words.
Let me renew myself in my own speech,
Till I become at last the thing I teach.
And let a taste be in my words,
That men may savour what is man in me,
And know how much I fail, how little see.
Let not my pleasure in my words
Forget the silence whence all speech has sprung,
The cell and meditation of the tongue.
And at the end, the Word of words,
Lord! make my dedication. Let me live
Towards Your patient love that can forgive
The blasphemy and pride of words
Since once You spoke. Your praise is there.
I mean it thus, even in my despair. (en)
- "There are two elements in Aaronson's poetry, the lyrical, which is of course an expected one-all poetry; even the most severe seems to have had its roots in the impulse of songand the other impulse is the dramatic one. These two are wedded well enough for the most part, though many of his poems seem to be concerned with the capturingat any priceof the mood or feeling of a place, and he is often capable of sacrificing theme or idea or passion even, for the sake of mood. In fact this desire to capture precisely a landscape comes across as an anxiety for root[s] somewhere, and it is at bottom, I think, a result of the conflict which is: Shall I or shall I not be a Jew?" (en)
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