In Praise of Praise
Good dog…! ’…
Your faithful hound closes his eyelids
for a fraction longer - could this be bliss
so pure that humans rarely know it? –
rests his head for a few moments
on your knee; twitches tail, just once,
to indicate the words received:
the one phrase which, it's said,
(quietly; almost, to yourself)
completely understood and shared
by man and dog: fulfilment
of the karma of companionship..
*
Yesterday, I was praised.. or rather,
there was praise for something
that was enacted through me..
Such a moment is too valuable,
too full of self-knowledge, to be dismissed
with embarrassed modesty: live it:
for a moment, one is in the presence
of oneself: here’s a giant; here’s a hero;
who is oneself, and yet, is to be worshipped
as the fulfilment of all one’s wished
oneself to be: being and worthship
come together in a purity..
so, praise the praisers! – who are all too few;
cast aside that English fear
that praising may involve some personal
commitment that one later may regret…
to be praised, is but self-dedication
in which praiser, praised, are alike; at one;
and from that moment on,
live together in that unity
and grow from it in ways
that must be lived and known, to be believed..
come now – tell me that you don’t
remember clearly, the very words your teacher said
the day they praised you from the heart
so unexpectedly, you even thought them human..
or what your mother’s friend (your mother,
who could never find it in her to so praise you in the words –
despite her sweetness for some reason –
with which, your mother’s friend later told you
she boasted of you, out of your own earshot…)
praise the praisers! join their ranks
and find that magic wand:
spoken directly, face to face;
or if you must, discreetly passed,
its implications hanging golden in the air…
that magic wand, which grows the soul
of giver and receiver joined as one in One..
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Related quotes
Who Is God, That God Needs To Be Praised?
WHO IS GOD THAT GOD NEEDS TO BE PRAISED?
Who is God that God needs to be praised?
Who are we that we are worthy of praising God?
Isn’t this Praise a form of flattery?
And how can God possibly want or need it?
We may need to praise-
Out of Gratitude
We may need to thank God
For all our blessings,
But does God want us to be flatterers
Who think to be rewarded for our praise?
I need to thank God
In that need is the Praise
But Praise alone
Makes both God and me
Seem unworthy.
I thank God
For having given me
This Poem.
If it is a poem.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Sonnet: Praise
Oh, praise me not in a limitless way;
O’er-praise puts mind in enshackled a sway,
Distorting its performance thereafter;
An o’er-enthused mind can’t function better.
The hard-earned, older virtues won o’er years,
In moments of flimsy praises by dears,
Feels weaken’d from its adverse/ill-effects;
Praises any human mind sure infects!
Praise me deservingly and nothing more;
Never praises in excessive measures pour;
It could inebriate my feeble mind,
Unless measured and properly refined.
’Tis better not to be praised if worthy,
Than be o’er-praised, ecstatic and guilty.
poem by John Celes
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To praise
Spring morning; air full of promise in the nostrils;
scents of flowers yet to bloom;
dew as diamonds on the grass stems;
sunshine on the hills across the river valley;
outside the rabbit hole, a terrier, crouched
on the scuffed reddish run-dust of a hundred paws;
focussed, completely still, every muscle ready and alert;
ear occasionally twitching at some movement underground;
now, all things are praise.
To live with praise, to live in praise,
to know; be blessed; be full;
joining, giving back, taste of that
which satisfies beyond all else;
then, dare to speak it: hear within the voice
knowledge of eternity in living now;
today, all things are praise.
The terrier, full five minutes still,
knows the rabbits knowing him;
gets up as if there’s nothing in the world
but this moment; scampers, wagging tail;
glances towards you, as if to share
the joy of dogginess and paw and earth;
a sudden move of breeze, off the still sea down there
to bless the land; the view quietly sparkles as if to say,
you will remember this all your life
because a moment speaks eternity;
today, all things are praise
poem by Michael Shepherd
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I have been both praised and criticized. The criticism stung, but the praise sometimes bothered me even more. To have received such praise and honors has always been puzzling to me.
quote by Billy Joel
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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In Praise of Ego
In carefree, laughing, joyful mood –
let’s praise the ego, to its face!
Our most faithful mate throughout our life;
with us longer than our parents or our children are;
at our heels at all times, proud of head and tail,
saying to the world that ‘I belong to him! ’;
faithful as a dog; and cunning as a cat;
between them, running our un-mastered lives;
(and like the cosy purring cat you stroke upon your lap,
ego's the secret dark night-hunter, out to kill all life..)
ego, more awake than we ourselves,
never missing a living moment;
every heart-beat an opportunity;
sharper entrepreneur than any city slicker:
‘what’s in it for me? ’; there is no trick,
no turn, no market swing, that ego can’t exploit and profit from;
so let’s praise ego to its face; see the Creator’s own full force,
brilliant and magnificent, manifested, used, in ego’s skills…
but know, and know we know, its lifetime’s bitter secret:
for all its skills, its energies are stolen fuel…:
moment by moment sapping secretly,
the consciousness, the wisdom, happiness,
that seem just out of our elusive reach..
So – as we watch a child, so innocent,
playing its merry games of fantasy,
running round itself in playground and in park,
we laughing in parental love, sing out those magic words:
‘I’m watching you…! ’
poem by Michael Shepherd
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I Have Praised Mother Nature
I have praised Mother Nature in ballad, song and rhyme
And writing on Mother Nature is never a waste of time
And though I am not a Burns, Francis Ledwidge or John Clare
I am one of the many about Nature who does care.
To write something on Nature is always satisfying
For Nature she has been around before creatures started flying
Her streams flow to her rivers her rivers to her oceans flow
And Nature will live forever though her Seasons will come and go.
I have praised mother Nature and her praises I'll always sing
The colours of her Seasons Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring
And though I truly love her little of her ways I know
I find her quite amazing and my wonder of her grow.
To my Goddess of Nature this rhyme I dedicate
I live in sheer awe of her of the beauty she create
She is the one immortal her beauty will live on
Long after the last human being to her reaper has gone.
poem by Francis Duggan
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I Could Not Praise Myself
I COULD NOT PRAISE MYSELF
I could not praise myself
For all I had
Or had not done-
And when a few praised me
I felt unworthy-
Yet Praise I wanted
And Love more than Praise
And even more
For God to Care for
those I love.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A compliment reflected
To praise the ‘generosity of soul’
in someone other – and that, to their face –
must be, to know that quality oneself;
and more, to be familiar in its use;
what splendour there of human character –
to link together these two noble words:
to recognise in others, one’s own soul;
and then, to see one’s generosity,
reflected in another’s qualities;
and then, to link the two as action seen,
joins mind, heart, soul, in generosity
in one that names and one that’s named, akin!
To show, and see, and praise, makes parity
in earth as is in heav’n: true charity.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Praise Up
Keep on praising, keep on praising
Praise up praise up
Praise up your mind to find a way to live
Keep on praising, keep on praising, keep on praising
Praise up all you people living in your fantasy
Praise up all you people trapped in mental captivity
Gonna free your mind, gonna free your mind
Right now with this feeling, feeling
Keep on praising, keep on praising
Praise up, praise up
Praise up your mind to a fine fine way to live
Keep on praising, keep on praising, keep on praising
Its your expression, its your expression
Its your expression that is leading me to see
Open up your eyes, this aint no compromise
Praise up on lord with this feeling right now
Oh lord what a feeling
Keep on praising, keep on praising
song performed by by G. Love & Special Sauce
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Her Praise
SHE is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I have gone about the house, gone up and down
As a man does who has published a new book,
Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,
And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook
Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,
A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,
A man confusedly in a half dream
As though some other name ran in his head.
She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.
If there be rags enough he will know her name
And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,
Though she had young men's praise and old men's blame,
Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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For Vasant Kothari
Every funeral, cremation, and its rites
may have its grief; yet too,
its celebration of a life well lived;
and call out, too, self-dedication’s vow:
as the crowd of living witness
quietly leave and share their murmured words,
this vow ever calls to me: to celebrate the living:
celebrate them just as if it were
their – our - last day on earth:
celebrate and praise unstintingly;
encourage and enthuse and aid;
form their virtues in the mind and
speak them loud – as if
these whom we praise, were unaware
of their own virtues..
celebrate the living, and their life
shall celebrate the praisers in its life..
Vasant, your sweet, contained humility
hid from strangers, showed your friends,
what you were; and, who we are;
I hope your spirit (which, I’d like to think,
inspired me to the sounds beyond these words)
approves, accepts – in the eternal present tense –
these thoughts of you.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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To be the Veda
Who am I?
Who put me here?
Why am I here?
What should I do?
Who will tell me who I am?
Who will tell me, who put me here?
Who will tell me, why I'm here,
and tell me then, what I should do? ..
Sometimes, I am all thankfulness
for what keeps all of me alive;
is there a greater one whom I may thank?
And sometimes, I'm alive with praise;
Is there a greater one whom I may praise?
Sometimes, as thunder rolls and lightning strikes,
earth quakes; seas foam,
I am all fear; is there a one
who’ll tell me, the other, or the greater
things that I should fear,
and tell me what I need not fear?
From day to day, my thankfulness
wells up for this; and then for that:
the earth that yields me food,
the rain that helps it grow,
the sun and light that help it ripen,
the air that I must breathe,
the sounds that draw me to my fellow men:
so are there many such, whose mighty powers
I should thank and praise,
or is there only One?
Or are there many in the One
whom I should thank and praise –
and what then do these greater powers
know of each other; know of that One?
Sometimes, when all is silent, still,
I seem to have a hint of whom I am;
of why I’m here; what I should do;
then who will tell me the greater more
of all the more I think I know?
Sometimes, when all is silent, still,
I wish to spend my days deep in that place;
but I must work; then should I trust
some other man or woman, who will spend
their days in thanking, praising, in my place?
or can my work be also thanks and praise?
who judges thanks and praise enough?
Sometimes, when all is silent, still,
I feel a greatness in me, that
joins me to all things in myself..
who shall tell me more of this?
Sometimes, when all is silent, still,
I seek for sounds, and words, and song,
to measure all that this heart feels:
oh, who will teach me greater words?
Is there a teacher, and a taught?
Or is the teacher all around?
Or is the teacher all within?
Oh, who will tell me whom I am,
in words that sing as from myself?
*
[An ongoing attempt to ‘imagine myself’ into the spirit of the Veda]
poem by Michael Shepherd
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0017 And Where The Joy
This, then, the question
for those whom it may concern –
to find a celebration in oneself
that, as outer is, so inner;
that all truth rests within oneself –
for where else can it be found?
to love oneself – for oneself must be loveable,
or none other could be loved for true;
to know all happiness to be within;
to celebrate all this; the world a constant joy;
to find this celebration in oneself.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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My Real Goddess
Today my mother
Came to my house
With lots of blessing
And full of good wishing
To live long
Happy and healthy
Progressive and wealthy
My mother
My sweet mother
My beautiful mother
My loving mother
My real goddess
My ever goodness
My first lady I loved
My life my mother
My soul my mother
My God-gift my mother
My pride my mother
My aim my mother
My teacher my mother
My friend my mother
My preacher my mother
My daughter's face look-like my mother
My daughter my little mother
O the Absolute Almighty
Give me my mother
Again and again
And again and again
My mother
Only my mother.
poem by Dr. P. K. Verma
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A Memory Of Youth
THE moments passed as at a play;
I had the wisdom love brings forth;
I had my share of mother-wit,
And yet for all that I could say,
And though I had her praise for it,
A cloud blown from the cut-throat North
Suddenly hid Love's moon away.
Believing every word I said,
I praised her body and her mind
Till pride had made her eyes grow bright,
And pleasure made her cheeks grow red,
And vanity her footfall light,
Yet we, for all that praise, could find
Nothing but darkness overhead.
We sat as silent as a stone,
We knew, though she'd not said a word,
That even the best of love must die,
And had been savagely undone
Were it not that Love upon the cry
Of a most ridiculous little bird
Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon.
ALTHOUGH crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping-place
Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.
These lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
These, these remain, but I record what-s gone. A crowd
Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Fatima Bhanu Banu
Observe the coolness in noon
If you are so fond of afternoon
That is the greatness of sun
Where everybody makes great run
Not all the objects are noticed
But sun and moon are always promised
As I came across one great such aspect
I need to express it well in fine act
India stands well in universal eye
With her size and progressive try
Lot more to perform and lot more to excel
There is more to reveal and tell
Maria, Fatima, Yeshoda* and Vasundhra*
And many more names may appear as an extra
All are praised and appreciated in their holy context
Some find big praise and even poems in text
"Banu"* struck me as straight away female
Yes she was Fatima Banu* Bhanu*
A name rarely found with mixed culture
That is how we see country's future
Parsee came to India and got absorbed
Muslims too mixed and never were probed
Like wise many communities made great home
All bore single entity and have remained welcome
I wished "Salaam"* and answer came as "namaskar"*
I was elated and felt very near to the star
She had made great impact on my mind
Lot more was needed to find
She herself is poetess and has enough of access
Lot more shine as mark of contentment on the face
I loved her approach with sense of fulfillment
That is how we assess the life's ambition in moment
I have lot more to learn from friends
Whether poet, well wisher, lover, or in any capacity at the end
What do they speak in their general way?
Words full of praise, affection and wish for permanent stay
*Yeshoda... foster mother of Lord Krishna * Vasundhra… earth...* Banu... respected word for female in Muslim community…Bhanu...Sun *Salam... wishes… Namaskar... Good morning
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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Anna Dalassené
In the golden bull that Alexios Comnenos issued
to prominently honor his mother,
the very sagacious Lady Anna Dalassené --
distinguished in her works, in her ways --
there are many words of praise:
here let us convey of them
a beautiful, noble phrase
"Those cold words 'mine' or 'yours' were never spoken."
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven;
To His feet Thy tribute bring!
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Who like me His praise should sing?
Praise Him! praise Him!
Praise the everlasting King!
Praise Him for His grace and favour,
To our fathers in distress!
Praise Him still the same for ever,
Slow to chide, and swift to bless!
Praise Him! praise Him!
Glorious in His faithfulness!
Father-like, He tends and spares us;
Well our feeble frame He knows.
In His hands He gently bears us,
Rescues us from all our foes,
Praise Him! praise Him!
Widely as His mercy flows!
Frail as summer's flower we flourish:
Blows the wind, and it is gone.
But while mortals rise and perish,
God endures unchanging on.
Praise Him, Praise Him,
Praise the high eternal One!
Angels, help us to adore Him;
Ye behold Him face to face:
Sun and moon, bow down before Him;
Dwellers all in time and space,
Praise Him! praise Him!
Praise with us the God of grace!
poem by Henry Francis Lyte
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Time, Perhaps
Time perhaps, for wonder –
to look around in awe
at how all that surrounds us
has somehow come about..
we who do not even know
how to grow a fingernail…
time perhaps, for gratitude –
for what we have already,
forgetting for a moment, our desires…
we who have forgotten
whom or how to thank..
time perhaps, for praise –
if not the Lawyer, praise the laws…
if not the lover, praise the love…
we who might become
praiseworthy through our praise…
time perhaps, for imagination –
to consider how things might be,
for then they might become…
we who have the world itself
inside us, just as much as that
great cosmos that’s out there…
time perhaps, for simplicity –
to pare life down to those things
which give us greatest joy –
and then, enjoy them all the more…
we who love complexity
when masquerading as the new…
time perhaps, for time –
to live a measured calm
of stillness, peace and rest
and find the joy there all the time …
we who ceaselessly invent
the labour-saving, and then find
ourselves a slave to these new toys…
time perhaps, to transcend time –
and live a timely life
of timeless joy; and know then,
all that’s not been mentioned here…
we who have yet to know
what human beings really are…
poem by Michael Shepherd
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A wrong praise
it is human nature to feel good
when served with lavish food
praised few words in honor
appeasement theory even uncalled for
It is killing an ideal man
the downfall is not by only woman
it is done by great and close friends
this has remained clear trends
t is easy to boost a prestige
though it may not be done at ease
the opponent understands the try
but he fails to find and feels shy
downfall may be caused by only few or five
to whom you think very close and believe
pretty friends and fools get elated
when they are praised and equated
It kills spirit and self pride
it is intentional try to conceal or hide
the weakness may be exposed at later stage
you will be living under illusion with inability to manage
Your half work may be done with little praise
it may take him by surprise but erode the base
it will downgrade his thinking power
he may nose dive and enjoy position very lower
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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