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This blog makes liberal use of AB's journals, letters, travel notes, and other sources.


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Saturday, 28 November 2020

A Man from the North

 ENOCH ARNOLD BENNETT, 1867 - 1931

Here lies a man, from common clay descended,
Who took the common people of the clay
And from their lives of grime and greatness blended
Created Life that shall not pass away.
 
Here lies a child who penned with childish pleasure
The pageantry before his eyes unfurled,
The pomps and shows, the luxury and leisure, 
The gauds and glitter of the rich man's world.
 
Yet still could sing, with sympathy unblunted,
With understanding welded doubly sure,
The saga of the straitened and the stunted,
The patience and the pathos of the poor.
 
Here lies a sage who saw in things material
No outward workings  of some cosmic plan -
But each day a chapter in some breathless serial
Written by fate for the delight of man.

Here lies a jester with a sense of duty,
A master craftsman in his art engrossed,
A steadfast friend, a worshipper of beauty, 
A kindly critic and a perfect host.

Here lies, in fine, a connoisseur of living
For whom romance inhered in every breath;
Shall not his soul go forth without misgiving
To greet the great adventure which is death?


Bennett’s memorial - Burslem cemetery | Stoke on trent ...

 

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