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Do you recognise this poem

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  • Do you recognise this poem

    My maternal grandfather died just over 60 years ago on 23 Mar 1956. He was a coal miner who became a local council rent collector in later life and was a very well-read and cultured man. I have in my possession a set of autograph books which he used as sketch books and most of them are simply that, books of sketches, often copied from newspapers, magazines and postcards. However, the earliest of these dated 1923 differed in that each left hand page would contain writing and the right-hand page a sketch. These were often short biographies of well-known people politicians, scientists and writers and the note were often attributed to JaK. There were also a small number of poems attributed to SF (my grandfather) and I am trying to find out if he actually composed these poems himself. The first such is transcribed below and I would be interested to know if anybody recognises it. I would also like to know if Jak rings any bells


    An island in a tropic sea,
    The glamour of unstinted ease.
    The blue lagoon's deep mystery
    And yet the touch of fell disease,
    Wherever Eden's bowers are known
    There misery erects a throne


    A patch of sunlight in a slum
    Where squalor reigns, and evil thrives;
    Whose tainted air, & sordid gloom
    Are profits' incense unto Dives.
    That light has touched a glory rare
    For loves sweet music lingers there


    But isles of beauty with disease,
    Or slums with lingering love expressed.
    Are not relations that can please
    The soul whose duty knows no rest.
    Drive misery from Beauty's bower
    And clear the slum, to give love power.
    March 10/23, SF

    SF AB1 p14-15.jpg
    David

  • #2
    My favourite way of finding how well known or otherwise some writing is is to put some of the text into Google. Nothing at all comes up when I tried this so perhaps it is all his own work.
    Anne

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    • #3
      I too tried to Google but did not find anything. I think it is original.
      F

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      • #4
        Many thanks to you both. I had a feeling it might be original as I felt fairly sure he was careful with attribution; also the tenor of the poem fits with what I remember of him.

        David

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        • #5
          Was it "Jak" or JAK"? I can't help thinking that that could be a nickname based on initials.

          And that poem dies seem original.

          C
          Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

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