Following are some lines from a poem....one that is unknown to me but
I'd like you to find for me.
At heart I am a stricken thing--you would not think so, would you?
And if you looked for such deceit you could not find it, could you?
For I have clothed my heart in mirth with brilliant color flying
But down inside my funny heart a little child is crying. |
Request for Question Clarification by
pinkfreud-ga
on
21 Aug 2006 10:25 PDT
It might help if we knew where (and approximately when) you read these
lines of verse. Any additional details could be helpful.
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Clarification of Question by
msdolally-ga
on
21 Aug 2006 13:40 PDT
Okay...an aunt, who is recently deceased, said she wrote these lines.
But she was very old...had always been fond of poetry...and we had
reason to think she may have actually memorized it long ago from
someone else's poem. No way to find out but try and find it. I tried
a website called "poemfinder.com" to no avail. That's really all we
have to go on. I would deeply appreciate it if you could solve the
mystery. Not to mention, if it IS from someone else's poem, it would
be nice to know the remainder of such poem.
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Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
21 Aug 2006 14:15 PDT
msdolally-ga,
I checked four poetry databases, and several other sources (including,
of course, searches of Google and Google Books), and did find anything
that looked like the poem you quoted.
Of course, not finding it does not mean it was never published...it's
simply not showing up in searches of some fairly deep resources.
This may well be exactly what your aunt said it was...something she
wrote on her own. But of course, we have no way of demonstrating that
conclusively.
I'd like to know your thoughts at this point as to how best to proceed?
Thanks,
pafalafa-ga
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Clarification of Question by
msdolally-ga
on
21 Aug 2006 17:27 PDT
Suppose we split the difference. Since you are unable to conclusively
find a poem that contains these lines and therefore there is no answer
either way...would you be willing to take $25 in payment for the work
you have performed?
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Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
21 Aug 2006 18:40 PDT
That's a generous and fair offer, but I guess I was hoping against
hope that you might have a suggestion for how to conslusively answer
your question.
My experience has been that only a small percentage of published
poetry ever makes it into electronic databases, so it certainly is
quite possible that the poem you asked about was written (and
published) by someone other than your aunt.
Or then again, it may well be that your aunt was indeed the author of the poem.
Alas...we may never know for certain.
Anyway, there's certainly no need, nor any expectation, to pay for a
search effort that didn't answer your question. But that's up to you.
If you would like to reduce the price of your question, so that I can
post an "answer", then by all means, feel free to do so.
But if not, then just leave the question as is, and perhaps another
researcher will come along who will have better luck in finding
something more definitive on this particular poem.
Thanks again,
paf
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Clarification of Question by
msdolally-ga
on
22 Aug 2006 18:13 PDT
You most recent correspondence with me is a very nice one. I, too,
wish that I had some clue to give you. I have known the aunt in
question for close to 60 years and never knew until recently that she
was fond of poetry. Shortly before she died, her daughter enlightened
me on this subject and said she would furnish me with two of her
favorite poems....which she did..this being one of them. When she
e-mailed these four lines to me, she ended her statement that her
mother had written those four lines of poetry with the words "she
wrote this herself, but I wonder..." So she too is wondering. Without
being too graphic, I'll say that the circumstances underwhich the
daughter found out about these lines was this: Her mother was in the
hospital and time was growing short. She wrote these lines of poetry
on a piece of paper and told another daughter "this is a poem that I
wrote." One would think that one would not be telling fibs on one's
death bed...and she doesn't strike me as the type who would tell a fib
under any circumstances. But since her daughter wondered and she
herself attempted to find the lines via an online search...then I
would be inclined to wonder which story is true also. Given the
content of the lines in question, perhaps it was something she didn't
care to share with her children while she was alive. Anyway...can we
do this? Since you have been so kind, could we fix it so that you
would receive some compensation for what you have done and
simultaneously arrange to leave the question open for others to
research as well? Perhaps even making some note of the research you
have already accomplished so that other researchers could avoid
duplicate work? I'll leave it to you..whatever you think is best.
Thank you for your help.
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