In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold
Interpretation
The speaker uses words as a protective covering, similar to how weeds can provide warmth against the cold.
In this quote by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the imagery of wrapping oneself in words suggests how language serves as a shield or armor against the harshness of life, much like the coarsest clothes protect against the cold. The comparison to weeds implies that, regardless of refinement, words can provide necessary comfort and defense in difficult situations, highlighting the importance of expression in human experience.
In practice
During a speech about the power of communication, one might say, 'In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold.'
Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise.
O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!
Earth is dry to the centre,_x000D_ But spring, a new comer,_x000D_ A spring rich and strange,_x000D_ Shall make the winds blow_x000D_ Round and round,_x000D_ Thro' and thro',_x000D_ Here and there,_x000D_ Till the air_x000D_ And the ground_x000D_ Shall be fill'd with life anew.
O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus
The number of people writing poems is vast, and their reasons for doing so are many, that much can be surmised from the stacks of submissions.
The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.
To the poet fated to be a poet, self-expression is as natural and as involuntary as breathing is to us ordinary mortals.
The subject of drama is The Lie. At the end of the drama THE TRUTH -- which has been overlooked, disregarded, scorned, and denied -- prevails. And that is how we know the Drama is done.
When the script is finished, and you're sitting around at a table read, and all the actors are reading the words that you've written, and you're hearing it out loud for the first time, that is always, every single time, no matter what, a magical process.
What I mean by 'abstract' is something which comes to life spontaneously through a gamut of contrasts, plastic at the same time as psychic, and pervades both the picture and the eye of the spectator with conceptions of new and unfamiliar elements.
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