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8.2
/10
(24
votes)
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I HOLD that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
Another mother gives him birth.
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
The old soul takes the road again.
Such is my own belief and trust;
This hand, this hand that holds the pen,
Has many a hundred times been dust
And turned, as dust, to dust again;
These eyes of mine have blinked and shown
In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.
All that I rightly think or do,
Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,
Is curse or blessing justly due
For sloth or effort in the past.
My life's a statement of the sum
Of vice indulged, or overcome.
I know that in my lives to be
My sorry heart will ache and burn,
And worship, unavailingly,
The woman whom I used to spurn,
And shake to see another have
The love I spurned, the love she gave.
And I shall know, in angry words,
In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear,
A carrion flock of homing-birds,
The gibes and scorns I uttered here.
The brave word that I failed to speak
Will brand me dastard on the cheek.
And as I wander on the roads
I shall be helped and healed and blessed;
Dear words shall cheer and be as goads
To urge to heights before unguessed.
My road shall be the road I made;
All that I gave shall be repaid.
So shall I fight, so shall I tread,
In this long war beneath the stars;
So shall a glory wreathe my head,
So shall I faint and show the scars,
Until this case, this clogging mould,
Be smithied all to kingly gold.
John Masefield
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Read poems about / on: sorry, trust, birth, war, woman, mother, star, women
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Comments about this poem (A Creed
by
John Masefield
) |
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comments about this poem (A Creed by
John Masefield
)
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Michael Harmon
(10/14/2009 10:19:00 PM) |
'I HOLD that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
Another mother gives him birth.
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain...'
-this does presume one is moving up toward sattwa, not down toward tamas...
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Nalini Hebbar
(10/14/2009 7:45:00 PM) |
This is Indian philosophy...and I can relate to it but do not subscribe to it
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Keith Smith
(10/14/2009 4:11:00 PM) |
great poem, thank you. :) love it
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Ginny Loggins
(10/13/2009 3:58:00 PM) |
I am a Buddhist, and this poem perfectly expresses my beliefs. I would love to find out how it was that he was exposed to such 'Eastern' religious ideas. Does anybody know?
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Is It poetry
(10/13/2009 9:53:00 AM) |
i grow so weary..
when ones lack faith..
forced then must give another..
and with your chains..
i pull my brother as his sister wails.
when you kill a child of their's...
Be it Muslim, Cristian know some will..
While Buddha lays reclined....
And creed may share his meal...iip
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Kevin Straw
(10/13/2009 5:42:00 AM) |
This creed is cruel pernicious nonsense dressed up in excellent verse. It reminds me of Plato's ill-considered dictum that women are the reincarnation of cowardly men. What survives of us is in those we leave behind - and that should be our goal: to leave them with the benefit of our having lived. Not long ago an English football manager was sacked for suggesting that crippled people are people whose previous lives were in some way not up to scratch.
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Norman How
(10/13/2008 6:25:00 AM) |
I found it interestiing that the very 'British' poet Masefield should believe in and express so succinctly the doctrine of Karma and reincarnation. Every matters. Maybe I don't see reincarnation his way, but I do agree that whatever lies 'beyond the veil' does somehow relate to how we are working our lives out now...
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Jessica Del Cid
(4/5/2006 5:52:00 PM) |
I love this poem, it reflects a nice philosophy: Everything you suffer now is in direct consequence of past actions, so logically all your actions now affect your future!
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John Masefield
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