Whether one believes in divine creation of mankind or selfish genetic composition, it is no doubt that language is, unlike us, purely human invention to facilitate communication. Words, grammar, punctuations ... they are no match for the finesse we observe in ourselves. And in our feelings, our emotions, which often appear outworldly. It is not unnatural for us to feel lost in trying to express our experience. Even the most masterly crafted sentence may barely manage to skim the surface. On the other hand, art especially poetry, contains the potential to exhume the deepest. For, the meaning of a poem is not in its lines but in the feelings it evokes. But can they help us lay our heart bare and vivid? I don't know ... but I try nonetheless. For it is the only way I know.
Possibly this was best said in the poem-V of Tennyson's
In Memoriam I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel:
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given outline and no more.
Marvelously simple, isn't it?
