Let my soul, a shining tree, Silver branches lift towards thee, Where on a hallowed winter's night The clear-eyed angels may alight.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a longing for spiritual connection and enlightenment through nature imagery.
In this evocative quote by Siegfried Sassoon, the speaker wishes for their soul to be like a luminous tree, reaching out to a divine source. The imagery of silver branches and angels emphasizes themes of purity and spiritual aspiration, suggesting a desire for transcendence and the hope that heavenly beings may descend upon this sacred scene, particularly during a peaceful winter night.
In practice
This quote could be used in a Christmas card to convey the beauty of winter and the spiritual significance of the season.
EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on—on—and out of sight. Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
But I've grown thoughtful now. And you have lost Your early-morning freshness of surprise At being so utterly mine: you've learned to fear The gloomy, stricken places in my soul, And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze.
I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.
The dead...are more real than the living because they are complete.
For it is humanly certain that most of us remember very little of what we have read. To open almost any book a second time is to be reminded that we had forgotten well-nigh everything that the writer told us. Parting from the narrator and his narrative, we retain only a fading impression; and he, as it were, takes the book away from us and tucks it under his arm.
I make my films because I'm affected by a situation, by something that makes me want to reflect on it, that lends itself to an artistic reflection. I always aim to look directly at what I'm dealing with. I think it's a task of dramatic art to confront us with things that in the entertainment industry are usually swept under the rug.
But once you've made a song and you put it out there, you don't own it anymore. The public own it. It's their song. It might be their song that they wake up to, or their song they have a shower to, or their song that they drive home to or their song they cry to, scream to, have babies to, have weddings to - like, it isn't your song anymore.
The reason one writes isn't the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say.
There's something arbitrary about taking a picture. So I can stand at the edge of a highway and take one step forward and it can be a natural landscape untouched by man and I can take one step back and include a guardrail and change the meaning of the picture radically... I can take a picture of a person at one moment and make them look contemplative and photograph them two seconds later and make them look frivolous.
I've never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.
A good poet's made as well as born.
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