Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Who Dares To Take This Life From Me, Knows No Better</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">An important thing in living<br> Is to know when to go; <br>He who does not know this<br> Has not far to go, <br>Though death may come and go<br> When you do not know.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Come, give me your hand, <br>Together shoulder and cheek to shoulder<br>We'll go, sour kana in cheeks<br>And in the mornings cherry sticks<br>To gum: the infectious chilli smiles<br>Over touch-me-not thorns, crushing snails<br>From banana leaves, past<br>Clawing outstretched arms of the bougainvillea<br>To stone the salt-bite mangoes.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Tread carefully through this durian kampong<br>For the ripe season has pricked many a sole.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> II</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">la la la tham'-pong<br>Let's go running intermittent<br>To the spitting, clucking rubber fruit<br>And bamboo lashes through the silent graves, <br>Fresh sod, red mounds, knee stuck, incensing joss sticks<br>All night long burning, exhuming, expelling the spirit.<br>Let's scour, hiding behind the lowing boughs of the hibiscus<br>Skirting the school-green parapet thorny fields.<br>Let us now squawk, piercing the sultry, humid blanket<br>In the shrill wakeful tarzan tones, <br>Paddle high on.the swings<br>Naked thighs, testicles dry.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Let us now vanish panting on the climbing slopes<br>Bare breasted, steaming rolling with perspiration, <br>Biting with lalang burn.<br>Let us now go and stand under the school<br>Water tap, thrashing water to and fro.<br>Then steal through the towkay's<br>Barbed compound to pluck the hairy<br>Eyeing rambutans, blood red, parang in hand, <br>And caoutchouc pungent with peeling.<br>Now scurrying through the estate glades<br>Crunching, kicking autumnal rubber leavings, <br>Kneading, rolling milky latex balls, <br>Now standing to water by the corner garden post.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> III</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This is the land of the convectional rains<br>Which vie on the monsoon back scrubbing streets<br>This is the land at half-past four<br>The rainbow rubs the chilli face of the afternoon<br>And an evening-morning pervades the dripping, weeping<br>Rain tree, and gushing, tumbling, sewerless rain drains<br>Sub-cutaneously eddy sampan fed, muddy, fingerless rivers<br>Down with crocodile logs to the Malacca Sea.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This is the land of stately dipterocarp, casuarina<br>And coco-palms reeding north easterly over ancient rites<br>Of turtle bound breeding sands.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This is the land of the chignoned swaying bottoms<br>Of sarong-kebaya, sari and cheongsam.<br>The residual perch of promises<br>That threw the meek in within<br>The legs of the over-eager fledgelings.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The land since the Carnatic conquerors<br>Shovelling at the bottom of the offering mountains<br>The bounceable verdure brought to its bowers<br>The three adventurers.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A land frozen in a thousand<br>Climatic, communal ages<br>Wags its primordial bushy tail to the Himalayas<br>Within a three cornered monsoon sea -<br>In reincarnate churches<br>And cracker carousels.<br>The stranglehold of boasting strutting pedigrees<br>And infidel hordes of marauding thieves, <br>Where pullulant ideals<br>Long rocketed in other climes<br>Ride flat-foot on flat tyres.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> IV</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Let us go then, hurrying by<br>Second show nights and jogget parks<br>Listening to the distant whinings of wayangs<br>Down the sidewalk frying stalls on Campbell Road<br>Cheong-Kee mee and queh teow plates<br>Sateh, rojak and kachang puteh<br>(rediffusion vigil plates) <br>Let us then dash to the Madras stalls<br>To the five cent lye chee slakes.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">la la la step stepping<br>Each in his own inordinate step<br>Shuffling the terang bulan.<br>Blindly buzzes the bee<br>Criss-crossing<br>Weep, rain tree, weep<br>The grass untrampled with laughter<br>In the noonday sobering shade.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Go Cheena-becha Kling-qui Sakai</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> V</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Has it not occurred to you how I sat with you<br>dear sister, counting the chicking back of the<br>evening train by the window sill and then<br>got up to wind my way down the snake infested rail<br>to shoo shoo the cows home to brood<br>while you gee geaed the chicks to coop<br>and did we not then plan of a farm<br>a green milking farm to warm the palm<br>then turned to scratch the itch over in our minds<br>lay down on the floors, mat aside<br>our thoughts to cushion heads<br>whilst dug tapioca roots heaped the dream<br>and we lay scrapping the kernel-less<br>fiber shelled coconuts</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O Bhama, my goatless daughter kid<br>how I nursed you with the callow calves<br>those mutual moments forced in these common lives<br>and then, that day when they sold you<br>the blistering shirtless sun never flinching<br>an eye, defiant I stood caressing your creamy coat<br>and all you could say was a hopeless baaa..a..aa<br>and then, then, that day as we came over the mountains<br>two kids you led to the thorny brush, business bent<br>the eye-balling bharata natyam</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"> VI</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O masters of my fading August dream<br>For should you take this life from me<br>Know you any better<br>Than when children we have joyously romped<br>Down and deep in the August river<br>Washing on the mountain tin.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now on the growing granite's precipitous face<br>In our vigilant wassail<br>Remember the children downstream playing<br>Where your own little voices are speechless lingering</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Let it not be simply said that a river flows<br> to flourish a land<br>More than that he who is high at the source<br> take heed: <br>For a river putrid in the cradle is worse<br>than the plunging flooding rain.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And the eclectic monsoons may have come<br>Have gathered and may have gone<br>While the senses still within torrid membranes</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">thap-pong<br> thap-poooooong<br>thap-pong</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>Glossary of Vernacular Terms</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Notes to « Who dares to take this life from me, knows no better »<br>I - line: 9 - sour kana: dried, salted seed of local fruit, taken as a ‘sweet'.<br>10 - cherry sticks: finely chopped end of the thin branch of the cherry tree, used as tooth-brush.<br>12 - touch-me-not-thorns: commonly growing thorn brush, hugging the ground, with leaves highly sensitive to the touch.<br>14 - bougainvillea: flowering tropical plant with large bright-coloured bracts covered with thorns.<br>15. - mangoes: fleshy fruit with big seed, yellowish-red skin colour, eaten either ripe or green with salt.<br>16. - durian: towering East-Indian tree bearing a large heavily-spiked oval fruit containing pulp notable for its fetid smell.<br>16. - kampong: native Malay village.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">II - line: <br>1. - la la la tham'-pong: form of ceremonious uttering employed by children when choosing sides to a game.<br>5. - joss sticks: Chinese incense sticks, of fragrant tinder mixed with clay, plentiful at a funeral.<br>7. - hibiscus: shrub cultivated as hedge or fence at schools, etc., and flower of a blood- red hue, the Malayan national flower.<br>15. - lalang: (imperata cyclindrica) aggressive weed flourishes by means of its underground runners, a sword-like posture, pricks the skin, found almost everywhere in Malaya.<br>18. - towkay: Chinese form of address for proprietor or landed gentry in Malaya.<br>20. - rambutan: amongst the finest fruits of the East, is a widely cultivated Malayan fruit, with varieties dark red in appearance and covered with hair-like growths- like a Gorgon-head.<br>20. - parang: heavy Malay sheath-knife.<br>24.- latex: sticky milky fluid of rubber plant.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">III - line: <br>7. - sampan: a small rowing-boat of Chinese origin, a common feature of Malayan rivers.<br>9. - dipterocarp: biggest and tallest tree of the Malayan jungle variety.<br>9. - casuarinas: quick-growing Australian and East-Indian tree found mostly on Malayan beaches, with jointed leafless branches resembling gigantic horse-tails.<br>13. - sarong-kebaya: Malay women's two-piece national costume.<br>- sari: Indian women's main garment of wear.<br>- cheongsam: Chinese one-piece dress with high slits up the sides of thighs.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IV - line: <br>2. - jogget: modern Malay dance of Latin variety.<br>3. - wayang: Malay word for show; here referring to Chinese opera.<br>4. - Campbell Road: popular street in Kuala Lumpur, famous for Chinese food stalls, <br>open deep into the night.<br>5. - Cheong-Kee: name of famous Chinese caterer.<br>- mee, queh teow: varieties of Chinese-Malayan fried noodle dishes.<br>6. - sateh, rojak: two popular highly spiced Malay varieties of food.<br>- kachang puteh: Malay for fried ground nuts.<br>7. - rediffusion: radio station offering ceaseless music in all the vernacular for the better part of the day and night in the capital Kuala Lumpur.<br>8. - Madras stall: Chinese food and drink stalls in the capital's Chinatown.<br>9. - lye chee: popular Chinese cool sobering drink, served with the flesh of the fruit of the same name and its juice.<br>12. - terang bulan: popular lilting Malay melody, now the theme of the national anthem of the newly-formed independent Federation of Malaya.<br>15. rain tree: (enterolobium saman, mimosacene) whose Malay name is ‘Hujan-hujan', though not a native tree is now widely grown along streets and in gardens, characteristic tree of Malaya today.<br>18. - Cheena-becha - derogative reference to the Chinese.<br>- K'ling-qui: derogative reference to the Indians.<br>- Sakai: derogative reference to the Malays.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">V - line: <br>12. - tapioca: (cassava) quick-growing plant with edible tuberous roots. Staple diet of Malayans during the Second World War.<br>15. - Bhama: name of one of the spouses of Krishna, the Hindu God; here refers to an orphaned kid I raised as a pet in my childhood.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VI - line: <br>1. - August dream: Independence granted to the Federation of Malaya on 30th August 1957.<br>20. - thap-pong, etc.: rhythmic sound of the Malay indigenous drum in slow tempo, spaced out deliberately, and to which beat the Malays perform their national dance, the Ronggeng.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(©: T. Wignesan - Heidelberg,1957; from Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: Rayirath Publications,1961.ISBN 978-2-904428-00-5)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=T.+Wignesan">T. Wignesan</a></strong></div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black