Orbler
Byron Twain
Brenton
Dexter
Jeanne Dininni
Shilpa KarhikConstance Woodrow
April 20th 2006 02:55
Constance Woodrow was an English-born Canadian poet. She died very young, at 38. "Defeat" was written in 1928, when she was 28 years old. During her lifetime she published two volumes of verse, The Captive Gypsy (1928) and The Celtic Heart (1929) and worked in a famous Toronto bookshop.
This poem is a good representation of why many people are afraid to get close in relationships, to have their 'dreaming heart' awakened. If and when the relationship ends, things seem even worse than they were before, a darker grey than the grey yesterdays, and once it's happened once you are afraid to try again. Once bitten, twice shy and all that. I'm lucky and this has never happened to me, so I'm still looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses and can cheerfully give Tennyson's advice, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". I'd be interested to hear others' opinions though - are the pleasures of love greater than the pain of the loss of it?
DEFEAT
by Constance Woodrow
Between the grey monotony of sky
And darker grey monotony of sea
A solitary seagull passes by,
Beating the air, and screaming plaintively.
And even so - between grey yesterdays,
Before your coming waked my dreaming heart,
And darker grey to-morrows, when our ways
Must lie forever half a world apart -
I take my way on wings that feebly beat
Against the adverse winds of circumstance,
My heart, rebellious at this last defeat,
Screaming defiance at the gods of chance.
This poem is a good representation of why many people are afraid to get close in relationships, to have their 'dreaming heart' awakened. If and when the relationship ends, things seem even worse than they were before, a darker grey than the grey yesterdays, and once it's happened once you are afraid to try again. Once bitten, twice shy and all that. I'm lucky and this has never happened to me, so I'm still looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses and can cheerfully give Tennyson's advice, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". I'd be interested to hear others' opinions though - are the pleasures of love greater than the pain of the loss of it?
DEFEAT
by Constance Woodrow
Between the grey monotony of sky
And darker grey monotony of sea
A solitary seagull passes by,
Beating the air, and screaming plaintively.
And even so - between grey yesterdays,
Before your coming waked my dreaming heart,
And darker grey to-morrows, when our ways
Must lie forever half a world apart -
I take my way on wings that feebly beat
Against the adverse winds of circumstance,
My heart, rebellious at this last defeat,
Screaming defiance at the gods of chance.
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