Lovers’ Infiniteness by John Donne – a prose version

There are plenty of analyses out there of the poem, so I thought it might be nice to do a prose translation instead (which would function as a line by line explanation in a way). First is the poem in full, then my prose translation.

Original poem

If yet I have not all thy love,
Dear, I shall never have it all;
I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,
Nor intreat one other tear to fall;
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee –
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters – I have spent.
Yet no more can be due to me,
Than at the bargain made was meant;
If then thy gift of love were partial,
That some to me, some should to others fall,
Dear, I shall never have thee all.

Or if then thou gavest me all,
All was but all, which thou hadst then;
But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall
New love created be, by other men,
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me,
This new love may beget new fears,
For this love was not vow’d by thee.
And yet it was, thy gift being general;
The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.

Yet I would not have all yet,
He that hath all can have no more;
And since my love doth every day admit
New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store;
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,
If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it;
Love’s riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it;
But we will have a way more liberal,
Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall
Be one, and one another’s all.

Prose translation 

If I don’t have all of your love yet, then Dear, I will never have all of it. I cannot breathe another sigh to move you or beg another tear to fall for you; And all of my treasures, which should have been enough to purchase you by now – sighs, tears, promises and letters/words – I have already spent all of them. But no more can be owed to me, than what was meant to be given to me when we made the bargain. If your gift of love to me then was only partial, in that you gave some of your love to me and some to other people, then Dear, I will never have all of your love.

Or if back then you gave me all of your love, that amount of love was only all of the love which you had back then. But if, since then, in your heart, there has been new love that has been created, by the presence of other men who still have their stocks of treasures in full and unused, and they can, outbid me for you by their tears, sighs, promises and letters/words, then these new loves in your heart will create new fears for me, because you have not promised these new loves to me. And yet, in fact, your gift of love was a general one; The ground of your heart is mine. Whatever new loves that grow there, dear, I will have all of that too.

But I would not have all of your love yet. He who has all of it can’t have anymore of it; and since everyday my love grows, you should have new rewards for me in store. You can’t give me your heart every day. If you can give it to me everyday, then you have never given it at all. Love’s riddles are that, though you part with your heart, it stays at home, and by losing your heart, you save it. But we will have a way to love that is more liberal, rather than giving away our hearts to each other, we will join our hearts, so we will become one and one another’s all.

Notes of explanation for a few particular lines:

1. ‘You can’t give me your heart every day. If you can give it to me everyday, then you have never given it at all.’ – In the sense like, if I only had one unit of love, and if I give that to you today, and tomorrow I also claim to also give you another unit of love, then that means that I never gave my original unit of love to you at all. I was lying.
2. ‘Love’s riddles are that, though you part with your heart, it stays at home, and by losing your heart, you save it.’ Love’s riddles are that though you have to give away your heart (ie. by loving other people), your (literal) heart stays at home (in your body), but by giving away your heart (by loving other people), you save your heart (because humans need to love and be loved).

Farther by Owen Sheers (Analysis)

The OCR anthology Towards a World Unknown has the poem in full at this link:

Click to access 171147-poetry-anthology-towards-a-world-unknown.pdf

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A rough analysis: (the last line is analysed in the last paragraph)

Against a dramatic setting in the nature in Wales, the speaker explores his love for his father, his sorrow at the distance that has grown between them and his hope that they could become closer.

The Welsh setting plays an integral part in the poem. Apart from having its own character, it sets the tone for the poem and reflects aspects of the changing relationship between father and son.
Lines 3-9 first sets the scene:
(a) ‘choosing the long way round’– both father and son treasure this time that they are spending together, and want to prolong it, so they choose the long way round. Sets a loving and sad tone. They want to spend time together but clearly do not do so often.
(b) ‘simplified by snow’ and ‘its puzzle solved by moss‘- a form of pathetic fallacy? sets the expectation for readers that this poem is a journey to untangle something, some unsolved sentiment. It also portrays nature as an intelligent being – it ‘simplifies’ the forest by laying snow over its complicated forestry, and it ‘solves’ the puzzle laid out by the deteriorated stone wall through growing moss strategically over it.
(c) ‘and out of the trees into that cleft of earth/split they say by a father’s grief/at the loss of his son to man.’ – these are powerfully emotionally lines. the first line builds suspense – what is there outside of the trees? What is so special about that ‘cleft of earth’? The next two lines have almost identical rhythms (do some simple scansion and you’ll see). This (and the enjambement) adds to the gravity of the tone, makes the emotion behind the lines especially intense. There is also obviously a similarity here to God’s sending of Jesus Christ to die for humanity. So, the speaker could be acknowledging that he knows that his father’s love for him is on epic proportions. In what way has his father lost him to ‘man’? Maybe the son (Owen Sheers) has left Wales after he has grown up and that could be interpreted as a betrayal and a ‘loss’.
The religious connotation is continued in Line 9 – an ‘altar’ of rock. What are they worshipping at this ‘altar’? Makes their journey seem like a pilgramage.
(d) ‘A blade of wind from the east/and the broken stone giving under our feet/with the sound of a crowd sighing.’– ‘Blade’ of wind – metaphor of wind as a knife blade, clearly sets a hostile tone. ‘broken stone’ – dysfunctional environment? Or just one steeped in ancient history? ‘the sound of a crowd sighing’- irony – there is no crowd in this rural place. Highlights the father and son’s isolation. Concentrates the spotlight of the poem on them.
(e)‘and shared the shock of a country unrolled before us,/the hedged fields breaking on the edge of Wales.’ – again the environment is animate and dynamic (don’t say it’s personification – humans don’t “unroll” or literally “break”). ‘Unrolled’ is a great verb to describe the vastness of the landscape before them and ‘breaking’ is a effective way of conveying the sudden ending of the fields against the coastline. The speaker and the father are sharing a memorable, dramatic, emotional moment. This is further reflected in the line ‘the sky rubbed raw over the mountains’. The sky’s colour may be ‘raw’, but the adjective also reflects on the emotional vulnerability of the speaker in the last lines of the poem.

In addition, the speaker’s relationship with his father oscillates between being distant and being close throughout the poem.
(a) The underlying tone of loss and sadness is set by the description of the ‘cleft of earth’ as described above.
(b) Then the son and father set out on a journey where they encounter a shared problem: the slope is ‘steeper than expected‘. In a way, this sets the reader up to expect that this is a journey where father and son bond (because as is commonly known, people bond together over shared problems). One of the most significant passages in the poem is:
(c) ‘Half way up and I turned to look at you,
your bent head the colour of the rocks,
your breath reaching me, short and sharp and solitary,
and again I felt the tipping in the scales of us,
the intersection of our ages.’
Here, the speaker comes to a realisation of the vast age gap between him and his father. ‘your bent head the colour of rocks’ – this line is ominous and brings up the shadow of death. Human bodies return to nature in death, but already, the father’s ‘bent head’ reminds the speaker of ‘rocks’ on the ground. The father’s breathlessness (evoked by the caesura and the consecutive conjunctions) is also a reminder of the ailing health (due to age). And so the speaker feels the ‘tipping in the scales of us’ – whereas once upon a time, the speaker was the one who would have been young and fragile and his father was strong and able, the speaker is now the able one and the father is ageing and fragile. The long/short length of the last two sentences evokes the imbalance of the tipped ‘scales’.
(d) ‘Pulling a camera from my pocket I placed it on the trig point
and leant my cheek against the stone to find you in its frame,
before joining you and waiting for the shutter’s blink
that would tell me I had caught this:’
The speaker and the father are out of touch with each other’s thoughts and intentions. Whilst the speaker intends to take a photo of the scenery by perching his camera on his camera stand, his father stands squarely in the frame. However, instead of asking his father to move away, the speaker sets the camera up to take a picture, walks to join his father, and waits for the camera to take a picture of the scene with the two of them in it automatically.
(e)’the sky rubbed raw over the mountains,
us standing on the edge of the world, together against the view
and me reaching for some kind of purchase
or at least a shallow handhold in the thought
that with every step apart, I’m another closer to you.’
As said – ‘raw’ reflects the colour of the sky but also the speaker’s emotional vulnerability in this moment. The next line emphasises the bond between the father and the son – they are a collective unit – ‘us’ and ‘together against’. But even in this powerful moment, the speaker acknowledges that there is still distance between them. This distance is, to some extent, irreparable – there is a hint of hopelessness when the speaker says ‘or at least…’. As if he is grasping at straws at a last resort to close the distance between them.

The last line is enigmatic – on the literal level, it makes no sense – it is an example of the speaker’s refusal to admit that the gap between him and his father is irreparable- he has convinced himself that growing apart from his father also means growing closer to him. On another level, it could be that the speaker is saying that although him and his father are growing apart as his father grows older and the speaker moves further away from Welsh culture, yet by growing apart, the speaker also gains the distance necessary to have a more complete understanding of his father. This is supported by the moments that they have shared on the way to the top of the hill – when the speaker was ahead of his father (and thus further apart), he was able to look back and have the perspective to observe that his father is growing old (bent head the colour of rocks). Also, by putting his camera on his camera stand, the speaker is out of touch with his father’s intentions to just enjoy the scenery – but by leaving the camera in place on the stand, the speaker is able to capture the moment (ie. take a photo of) him and his father sharing this moment of scenery.

To note:
There are alternating patterns in the poem – of:
(1) human interaction VS setting
Human interaction: 1-2, 9-11, 15-21, 24-27, 29-32
Everything between these lines describes the setting.
In other words, the speaker, his father and the Welsh setting are interwoven tightly. The relationship between the son and father and the Welsh setting are inseparable.
(2) The relationship between son and father oscillates between distance and closeness. (Use a highlighter and you can see they alternate:)
Closeness:
‘but it was then we climbed the Skirrid again,’
‘We stopped there at an altar of rock and rested’
‘and you are with me again, so together we climbed to the top’
‘before joining you and waiting for the shutter’s blink’
‘us standing on the edge of the world, together against the view’
‘that with every step apart, I’m another closer to you’
Distance:
‘split they say by a father’s grief…’
‘and again I felt the tipping in the scales of us…’
‘and leant my cheek against the stone to find you in its frame’
‘or at least a shallow handhold in the thought…’

The Disquieting Muses by Sylvia Plath

A dark and sad poem about the passing away of the poet’s mother, and the subsequent intensifying of the darkness that has always surrounded the poet since her birth. In order to understand the poem, you have to understand the fact that sometimes depression is described as a haunting presence that follows someone around.

The poem, each stanza followed by a prose ‘translation’.

Mother, mother, what illbred aunt

Or what disfigured and unsightly

Cousin did you so unwisely keep

Unasked to my christening, that she

Sent these ladies in her stead

With heads like darning-eggs to nod

And nod and nod at foot and head

And at the left of my crib?

(Mother, mother, which ill-mannered Aunt or which ugly Cousin did you not invite to my christening? So that, like the spurned witch from Sleeping Beauty who cast a curse on the princess, the Aunt sent these ladies with heads like darning-eggs to stand around my crib and creepily nod their heads all the time?)

Mother, who made to order stories

Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,

Mother, whose witches always, always

Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder

Whether you saw them, whether you said

Words to rid me of those three ladies

Nodding by night around my bed,

Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.

(Mother, you are the person who makes up heartening stories to tell me, like that of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear. All the black magic that has ever touched your life were the witches-shaped gingerbread that you baked. So I wonder if you ever said anything to get rid of those ladies around my crib. I wonder if you even saw those ladies with the darning-egg heads around my crib, nodding their heads around me at night, standing there mouthless, eyeless with stitched bald heads.)

In the hurricane, when father’s twelve

Study windows bellied in

Like bubbles about to break, you fed

My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine

And helped the two of us to choir:

‘Thor is angry: boom boom boom!

Thor is angry: we don’t care!’

But those ladies broke the panes.

(Once, during a hurricane, when the twelve windows in father’s study were bending inwards from the wind like bubbles about to burst, you fed my brother and I cookies and Ovaltine. You helped us to sing loudly together a song to wash away our fears: ‘Thor is angry: boom boom boom! Thor is angry: we don’t care!’ But all this was in vain. The windows in the study shattered anyway, because the ladies with the darning-egg heads broke them.)

When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,

Blinking flashlights like fireflies

And singing the glowworm song, I could

Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress

But, heavy-footed, stood aside

In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed

Godmothers, and you cried and cried:

And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.

(The other girls at my school danced gracefully on tiptoes for a performance, shining onstage like flashing fireflies in the nighttime, and singing a bright, uplifting song. But I couldn’t even lift a foot in my twinkle-dress. Instead, heavy-footed, I stood aside the stage, standing in the shadow cast by my Godmothers (the darning-egg ladies). Mother, you cried and cried. But the shadows just lengthened and then the lights of the performance went out.)

Mother, you sent me to piano lessons

And praised my arabesques and trills

Although each teacher found my touch

Oddly wooden in spite of scales

And the hours of practicing, my ear

Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.

I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,

From muses unhired by you, dear mother.

(Mother, you sent me to piano lessons and praised my arabesques and trills, even though all of my teachers thought my playing was oddly wooden in spite of hours of playing scales and practicing. They thought that I was tone-deaf and unteachable. But I learnt a different kind of music anyway, from muses that you didn’t hire for me, dear mother.)

I woke one day to see you, mother,

Floating above me in bluest air

On a green balloon bright with a million

Flowers and bluebirds that never were

Never, never, found anywhere.

But the little planet bobbed away

Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!

And I faced my travelling companions.

(I woke one day to see you, Mother, floating above me in the bluest air on a green balloon that was bright with million flowers and bluebirds that have never been found anywhere on earth. But this little planet with you in it bobbed away like a soap bubble, even as you called to me: Come here! After you left, I faced my travelling companions (the ladies with darning-egg heads)

Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,

They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,

Faces blank as the day I was born,

Their shadows long in the setting sun

That never brightens or goes down.

And this is the kingdom you bore me to,

Mother, mother. But no frown of mine

Will betray the company I keep.

(Through day and night, beside me at my head, at my side, by my feet, my travelling companions stand vigil, still and unmoving as stone. Their faces are as blank as they were on the day that they first appeared beside me at my birth. Their shadows are long in the eternal sunset of my life, in which the sun never brightens up but never sets completely. This is the kingdom that you bore me into, Mother. But you will not see any frown or expression on me that betrays the dark company that I keep.)

Coming home by Owen Sheers

The Poem: 

My mother’s hug is awkward,
As if the space between her open arms
is reserved for a child, not this body of a man.
In the kitchen she kneads the dough,
flipping it and patting before laying in again.
The flour makes her over, dusting
The hairs on her cheek, smoothing out wrinkles.

Dad still goes and soaks himself in the rain.
Up to his elbows in hedge, he works
on a hole that reappears every Winter,
its edges laced with wet wool –
frozen breaths snagged on the blackthorn.
When he comes in again his hair is wild,
and his pockets are filled with filings of hay.

All seated, my grandfather pours the wine.
His unsteady hand makes the neck of the bottle
shiver on the lip of each glass;
it is a tune he plays faster each year.

Summary and Analysis

Sheers’ poem expresses the pain of the speaker on witnessing the inevitable old age of his family on his return to home. Through understanding the speakers’ refusal to come to terms with the cruel effects of old age on his mother, father and grandfather, the poignancy of the situation is intensified for the reader.

The shrinking physical form of the mother is simply interpreted as a neutral trait, as ‘awkwardness’, and as a problem of deliberate design. It is not that old age has forced upon his mother rigidity of limbs and joints that stops her ‘open arms’ from embracing her adult son, but it is simply a natural quirk of his mother’s physical form – it was build to embrace a child, that’s all. The sight of an elderly lady with stiff limbs still kneading dough diligently should be a sad and humbling sight, but instead it is expressed as a scene of youthful make over, as if the scattered flour on the mothers’ face acts like cosmetic products, ‘smoothing out wrinkles’. The tragedy of irrecoverable youth is also drawn out by this last image in the first stanza.

The actions and description of the father is also similarly made poignant through the speakers’ interpretation of the father’s motivation for his actions. Drenched in the rain in his work in maintaining the garden, the speaker chooses instead to interpret his father as voluntarily going out to ‘soak himself in the rain’. The hardship of gardening is also reinforced through the imagery of the father’s frozen breaths as ‘wet wool’. An opaque, white, fluffy material, the comparison of the father’s breath in the air with wool is a testament to the freezing weather that the father is working in, and the romanticizing of such frozen breath as wool ironically draws out the extremely unromantic reality of working on a garden hedge in the rain and cold.

Finally, the grandfather’s arthritis that worsens noticeably every year is understood instead as a musical tune that he plays with more speed, more expertise every year. The irony of such a comparison, that the grandfather does not have choice in the worsening arthritis, and it is far from being a skill that is deliberately cultivated, draws out the cruel of old age, and the speaker’s difficulty in coming to terms with its effects on his family members.

lionheart by Amanda Chong

You came out of the sea,
skin dappled scales of sunlight;
Riding crests, waves of fish in your fists.
Washed up, your gills snapped shut.
Water whipped the first breath of your lungs,
Your lips’ bud teased by morning mists.

You conquered the shore, its ivory coast.
Your legs still rocked with the memory of waves.
Sinews of sand ran across your back-
Rising runes of your oceanic origins.
Your heart thumped- an animal skin drum
heralding the coming of a prince.

In the jungle, amid rasping branches,
trees loosened their shadows to shroud you.
The prince beheld you then, a golden sheen.
Your eyes, two flickers; emerald blaze
You settled back on fluent haunches;
The squall of a beast. your roar, your call.

In crackling boats, seeds arrived, wind-blown,
You summoned their colours to the palm
of your hand, folded them snugly into loam,
watched saplings swaddled in green,
as they sunk roots, spawned shade,
and embraced the land that embraced them.

Centuries, by the sea’s pulmonary,
a vein throbbing humming bumboats –
your trees rise as skyscrapers.
Their ankles lost in swilling water,
as they heave themselves higher
above the mirrored surface.

Remember your self: your raw lion heart,
Each beat a stony echo that washes
through ribbed vaults of buildings.

Remember your keris, iron lightning
ripping through tentacles of waves,
double-edged, curved to a point-

flung high and caught unsheathed, scattering
five stars in the red tapestry of your sky.

Summary and Analysis

The subject of the poem, ‘you’, is the Merlion statute, which stands in this work as a national symbol of Singapore.

First stanza

The first stanza describes the Merlion at the dawn of the creation of Singapore, imbuing the creature with a mythical dimension, as the imagery of it revealing itself from the sea, riding on waves is in line with the behaviour of Greek gods and mythical legends. The image here is a powerful one, as not only is the Merlion portrayed to be mythical, it is at the same time true to its nature as half-fish, half-lion as it is clutching fish in its fists whilst adapting from using gills to using its lungs instead as it approaches land. Chong cleverly conveys the essence of the Merlion here in the same way that all powerful deities are portrayed – mythical, ethereal yet concrete and present in the flesh simultaneously.

The imagery of the Merlion and its appearance on the sea in this stanza is vivid because alliteration of ‘w’ sounds over three lines in the stanza emulates in audio form the physical movement of rising and falling of sea waves, and the sibilance of ‘snapped shut’ gives a sense of the efficiency and rapid adaptation of the Merlion towards its imminent move from the sea to the land. The consistent mixing of ‘w’ and ‘s’ sounds throughout the stanza also evokes, on the plane of the sounds of the words, a sense of the duality of the nature of the Merlion. A gentle introduction to the vast potential of Singapore at the dawn of its creation is captured in the phrase ‘morning mists’, as the dawn of Singapore is compared to the dawn of a new day. All the excitement and possibilities inherent in the idea of a new day is projected onto the idea of the young, new nation of Singapore in this stanza.

Second stanza

The second stanza is about the Merlion’s conquer of the land mass of Singapore and again, the figure of the Merlion is imbued with a mythical dimension. It ‘conquers’ the land of Singapore, like a victorious human army captain, but it also embodies history in its existence, the way only a creature with a mythical dimension could. It lives with the ‘memory of waves’ (ie. memories of where it came from, ‘its oceanic origins’). Describing this origin as inscribed in ‘runes’ gives the creature, or Singapore, a sense of rich and deep history, as runes are usually associated with mysterious, unreadable symbols of writing from ancient times. ‘Your heart thumped’ corresponds to the ‘morning mists’ from the previous stanza, because it evokes the imagery of a heart pumping strongly because of adrenaline, of excitement at the possibilities of the future. ‘animal skin drum/ heralding the coming of a prince’ brings out the juxtaposition of the primal and the royal, as if Singapore was a mix of raw power and regality at the beginning of its creation.

Third stanza

The third stanza is about the land of Singapore embracing the Merlion and softens the image of the Merlion as the forceful ‘conqueror’ of the land. The trees move protectively and welcoming around the Merlion, and the Merlion makes a regal, powerful presence on the land. Its eyes are emerald blazes, it is secure in its own sense of presence enough to ‘settle back’ on its ‘haunches’, and it is comfortable enough in its surroundings to ‘roar’, to call out.

Fourth stanza

This stanza is about the way the Merlion facilitates the beginning of life on the land of Singapore. The overall impression is that Singapore began with the birth of a wild jungle – seeds are ‘wind-blown’ and arrives in ‘crackling boats’, bringing to mind boats made out of dried natural plants or material which would ‘crackle’ as the boat moved. ‘swaddled’ and ‘spawned’ are interesting choices of verbs, bringing to mind the imagery of coddled children and the numerous eggs of frog spawn. It is as if the life in the seeds are precious and loved like human babies are, yet at the same time, they are uncontrollably abundant, numerous as frog spawn. Reciprocity and harmony of land and life (symbolized or represented by the seeds) is conveyed in the repetition of the verb ’embraced’ in the last line of the stanza.

Fifth stanza

The fifth stanza describes the growth of life on Singapore, after the sowing of seeds in the previous stanza. The strong life of the nation is conveyed by the comparison of the sea as a ‘vein’ that is ‘throbbing’, in other words, blood is flowing with powerful beats from the heart of the nation, in the form of crowds of Singapore’s signature ‘bumboats’ moving down the river. The transformation of Singapore from a land of jungle and trees into its modern picture of skyscrapers is smoothly captured in the line ‘your trees rise as skyscrapers’. A subtle but powerful image that enhances the beauty and magnificence of the skyscrapers in Singapore is captured in the description of ‘above the mirrored surface’. If you think of those paintings of a city’s skyline that is reflected on the surface of a sea, each building has two presences – one is its presence on land, the other is its reflection in the water, and on the painting (as well as real life), the reflection is glued at the bottom to the real building on land, and so the building is twice as long, has twice the presence it has, if it is ‘above a mirrored surface’.

Final three stanzas

Perhaps a reminder to the modern, fast-moving ubran metropolitan to remember its grand origins and rich historical roots. (But was Singapore actually steeped in such grand origins, or do we have a Gatsby situation of self-mythologizing a little bit too much here?!)

Personal Opinion 

While this poem is a fair go at communicating the creation of nation through the national symbol of a mythical creature, it reeks of the absorption of the white-washed version of history that the West has propagated.

The specificity to Singaporean culture and history seems to be very limited in this version of Singapore’s mythical origins as a nation. The impression it leaves with me is more of a watered down version of the mythical origins of a city in Europe.

The poem is peppered with words that 1. have a very distinct history/association of meanings in Western culture, 2. are not used in a way that endows them with a new identity, as would befit a poem about a city of such multi ethnic and cultural mix, now or back in history.

Just a few of these are ‘dappled’, ‘washed up’, ‘ivory coast’, ‘sinews of sand’, ‘heralding’, ‘squall of a beast’, ‘crackling boats’, ‘centuries’, ‘ribbed vaults’.

‘ribbed vaults’ particularly bugs me – this is a classic feature of Gothic architecture. Don’t tell me that Singapore absorbed the styles of Gothic architecture from the West back in the 16th to 18th century. If it doesn’t apply to Singapore, then don’t use it.

Trying to hold up the figure of the Merlion as the national symbol and myth of Singapore is also too much. But I will concede that the attempt has good moments – in its clever communication of the Merlion’s nature of half fish half lion in the first stanza.

The other moments of originality worth applauding in the poem is the incorporation of ‘bumboats’ in the imagery of the Singaporean sea, and the smooth linking of the ‘keris’ flung high and the sight of the Singaporean flag, of a red background and yellow stars on it.