FRANCIS FREKE GARLAND
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Bristol Poet.
Member of the Poets Fellowship of Bristol. Born in Kingswood, Gloucestershire.
From the third book of Poems by the Poets Fellowship Bristol
printed by Partridge and Love LTD Broadmead 1922.
I am twice related as I have two descents from the Garland family.
Cordena by Francis F Garland
"I NEVER see Cordena now
Beside the well, beneath the bough
of lilac; - where is she?
Can it be that she is bow'd in grief.
Or hiding, like a rose' neath leaf
Where strange eye cannot see ?"
"Cordena never more shall sit
Beside the well and look in it,
Lost in fantastic dreams;
Where she hath gone no blossoms are,
No leaves, no sun, no moon, no star
Nor any whisp' ring streams.
"Sorrow and tears are strangers, where
Her head lies on its golden hair as on a radient flame;
Where she is lying no eye is
Except her own-far from the kiss
Of love and human blame"
"Dost- dost thou mean that she is dead,
That maiden with the glorious head,
Sweet lips, and sweeter eyes ?
She was too beautiful to die !
Death would have blush'd and hurried by
So fair a paradise"
"Death gathers all. Her life is done,
And with her sleeps another one
Whose spirit knew not life;
Cordena lov'd-she could no other,
Being made of love-and was a mother-
To-be, yet not a wife
"Not far from her dark earthly cover
Is laid the pale corpse of her lover;
He died before she died,
Unconscious of her sinless plight,
And of the change to dark from bright
Which clasp'd his natural bride.
"Many there be who would defame
Her lovely soul with words of shame,
And brand her piteous tomb;
But, better they should humbly make
To the dead a pilgrimage, and take
With them a lily-bloom"
A PAEN OF JOY
It is enough for me
To know myself to be,
To feel the wind, the sun, the rain, the flame of health:
To lean exultantly,
Folded in ecstasy,
To earth's immortal music-catch the golden wealth !
My soul hath found the truth
She sought thro' all her youth,
The radiance and triumph which eluded thought.
How strange ! some sylph of Ruth
Springs from the vast uncouth
Circumference of the world and rests beside this naught.
This naught ! whose visions gave
Oblivion with the grave:
Whose voice cried in the market-places- "Here, To-day";
Whose soul was wont to rave,
"Man is his makers slave,
Law-circumscrib'd and servile, fashioned to obey."
Whose soul was wont to think,
"If now I stoop to drink
Love's luscious vintage-and the glory memoried-
Nothing can snap the link
Until my pulses sink
In silence. And to those that die all things have died."
Strange that I now inherit-
Being robed in dark demerit-
This veridescent loveliness, this flowered repose !
It is some mystic spirit,
Whose vagaries inspire
To surreptitiously meander from the rose
And colour the domain
Of my dream-haunted brain.-
Lo! I could love all things' neath purple-vestur'd heaven.
I lose the false and gain
The beauteous without stain,
The glorified, the God-crown'd, by the spirit given.
Now wherefore should I stray
From this immortal day,
Whose scintillations weave a tasselled-key
Wherewith these hands of clay
Unlock the door of spray
Which festoon o'er the chancels of eternity ?
Ah ! tis enough for me
To know myself to be,
To brood upon this diaphanous Eidolon
Which throws o'er flower and tree
Its hair, mysteriously,
With fruits and visions from the altars of the sun.
1881 Kingswood Hill Waits Lane, Mangotsfield, Gloucester, England
Francis F. GARLAND Head M Male 27 Bristol, Gloucester, England Plasterer & Tiler
Sarah A. GARLAND Wife M Female 27 Bristol, Gloucester, England
Maud GARLAND Daur U Female 5 Bristol, Gloucester, England
Francis GARLAND Son Male 3 Bristol, Gloucester, England
Lilly GARLAND Daur Female 2 Bristol, Gloucester, England
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Family History Library Film 1341589 Public Records Office Reference RG11
Piece / Folio 2446 / 3 Page Number 31881 Kingswood Hill Waits Lane, Mangotsfield, Gloucester, England
(living next to my gt. gt, gt, grandfather Thomas Banfield in Waits lane, Kingswood, Gloucestershire)
Francis GARLAND Head M Male 62 Kingswood, Gloucester, England Glazier
Elizabeth GARLAND Wife M Female 54 Bristol, Somerset, England Dressmaker
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Family History Library Film 1341589 Public Records Office Reference RG11
Piece / Folio 2446 / 3 Page Number 3