That feeling when I nuzzle into a comfortable cozy pillow in my home after a tiring day, that medicinally relaxing experience which touches every sensuous sinew in the body, is what the spirit perhaps experiences when it feeds on literature. Poetry, specially, provides an oasis of romantic idealism from which you can drink often and deep, then get back to real life and almost wink at its drudgery because of the pleasure trip you have indulged in, behind its back. After washing your spirit clean of insignificant details and getting rubbed with the eros and cosmic dust of the verses of great men, you can get back to the chaotic practices of everyday life and navigate amidst its crippling prejudices with a degree of calm almost bordering on aloofness.
Mortal great men, many of them now dead, have put down their lifeblood of efforts in gentle immortal words that conceal a lifetime of wisdom. Wordsworth, with his strong poetic potential and a smilingly simple philosophy; Auden, with his touch of sadness, his sense of righteousness and his strong iteration for empathy towards humanity; Donne, with his religious tilt and blaspheming dictum (Who else could start a poem titled 'Canonization' with the swear words - 'For God's sake'), bringing together two things apparently unlike; Shakespeare, that wizard who, with his magical touch renders the familiar, new, and thereby brings even the most fanciful characters within our orbit of sympathy; provide not just consolation but a rich nourishment which chips down the rough edges of our soul and leaves us strong, content and dreamy within, polished, shining and gleamy without.
This is to that breed of men who touch us with their words and keep us hungry and lush.
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