AN ANONYMOUS POEM ON SUCCESS

 

AN ANONYMOUS POEM ON SUCCESS

          Success which is defined as the achievement of a desired outcome, goal, or purpose is not a providential gift but the well-deserved fruit of one’s perfect knowledge, skill, hard work, application of effective methods, selecting the most productive time, committing no glaring errors, and sticking to the fruitful efforts till the intended result is achieved.

            To put it simply, a person succeeds when he accomplishes what he attempts, or attains a desired object or result; and an enterprise or undertaking succeeds that has a prosperous result.

            Some synonyms of success are: achievement, accomplishment, victory, triumph, attainment, and acquirement.

            Before you read the anonymous poem which will follow, look at these quotes:

*He who would succeed must arm himself with three vital and most necessary weapons, First, he must have ceaseless industry; second, he must have limitless ambition of purpose: third he must possess unquenchable enthusiasm, coupled with a determination to succeed. ---American Illustrator and painter  Howard Pyle (1853-1911).

  **If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counsellor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.-----British writer and politician Joseph Addison (1672-1719).  

                        Here is the Anonymous Poem mentioned above:                                                               

 

                                                WHAT IS SUCCESS?

Success is speaking words of praise,

In cheering other people's ways.

In doing just the best you can,

With every task and every plan.

 

 

It's silence when your speech would hurt,

Politeness when your neighbor's curt.

It's deafness when the scandal flows,

And sympathy with others' woes.

 

It's loyalty when duty calls,

It's courage when disaster falls.

It's patience when the hours are long,

It's found in laughter and in song.

 

It's in the silent time of prayer,

In happiness and in despair.

In all of life and nothing less,

We find the thing we call success.

 

                                                            ********

G.R.Kanwal

30 May 2026

 

 

           

An ANONYMOUS POEM

 

 An ANONYMOUS POEM

            The theme of the poem is laughter which is defined as “ an involuntary, rhythmic contraction of the respiratory system ---such as the diaphragm ---typically serving as an outward auditory expression of positive emotions like joy, amusement, mirth or relief.”

             Before you read the poem look at the following famous quotes:  

            (a). The young  man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.

            b). The reason man is the only animal that laughs and weeps is that he is immediately struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.

            (c). A good laugh heals a lot of hurts.

            (d). Laughter is the best medicine.

            (e). A day without laughter is a day wasted.

 

            Here is the poem:

A laugh is just like sunshine,

It freshens all the day.

It fills the peak of life with light

And drives the clouds away:      

The soul grows glad that hears it

And feels its courage strong;

A laugh is just like sunshine,

For cheering folks along.

A laugh is just like music,

It lingers in the heart,

And where its melody is heard,

The ills of life depart;

And happy thoughts come crowding

Its joyful notes to greet;

A laugh is just like music

For making living sweet.

G.R. Kanwal

29 May 2026

 

SHAKEAPEARE’S THREE QUOTES ON LIFE

 

 SHAKEAPEARE’S THREE QUOTES ON LIFE

            The three quotes on life which are given below are taken from the plays of the English poet-dramatist William Shakespeare (23 April 1564---23 April 1616).

            All of them are extraordinary in world literature and are therefore usefully memorable.

            To define life is not easy. It requires God Himself to sum it up in a few words.

            Every person’s life is a unique tale.  It is a meaningful biography which deals with some personalized events.

*Look at the first quote.  It is a most famous soliloquy from the play Macbeth spoken by Macbeth the hero of the play upon learning of his wife’s death. 

            As a critic says: it reflects Macbeth’s profound nihilism,  conveying the realization that life is entirely meaningless and ultimately devoid of purpose.

            Here is the first full quote:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps on this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

 

** The second quote which follows is taken from the play All’s Well That Ends Well.

            The web of our life is full of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues

***The third quote which follows is from the play King John.

 

There’s nothing in this world can make me joy:

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale

Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;

And bitter shame hath spoil’d  the sweet world’s taste,

That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.

                                                *****

G.R.Kanwal

28 May 2026                                 

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU SAID

 

                JAWAHARLAL NEHRU SAID

            Jawaharlal Nehru was free India’s first Prime Minister. He was born on 14 November 1889 at Allahabad and died in New Delhi on 27 May 1964.

            He is known not only as an anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, an idealist, a visionary statesman of international stature but also an outstanding writer.

            His three most important and widely books are : The Discovery of India (1946),  An Autobiography (1936) and Glimpses of World History (1934).

            His birth day (14 November) is celebrated as Children’s Day and because of his “affectionate bond with the younger generation, he is widely remembered by the endearing title “Chacha Nehru” (Uncle Nehru).

            Given below are some of his memorable quotes.

*A culture that cannot understand modern times is an incomplete culture.

*A person should have the capacity to think, to act, and to decide.

*No democracy can exist for long in the midst of want and poverty and inequality.

*It is the children of science who have made the world of today.

*Peace cannot be purchased by compromise with evil or by surrender to it. Nor can peace be maintained by methods that themselves are the negation of peace.

*A nation’s work never ends. Men may come and go, generations may pass but the life of a nation goes on. We must remember the basic fact that we can achieve little unless there is peace in the country, no matter what policy we pursue.      

*Communalism is the badge of a backward nation, not of the modern age. People have their religion and they have a right to hold firmly to it, but to import religion into politics and to break up the country is something which was done in Europe 300 or 400 years back. We in India have to get rid of it.

                                                ********

G.R.Kanwal

27 May 2026

 

 

SHAKESPEARE SAID (PART 2)

 

                SHAKESPEARE SAID (PART 2)

1.    The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.

2.    Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

3.    Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?

4.    When love speaks, the voice of all the gods make heaven drowsy with the harmony.

5.    Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

6.    Love is not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come; love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.

7.    Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.

8.    Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

9.    Love is not blind; it has twenty pairs of eyes.

10.Love  can comment upon every woe.

11.Lovers are given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may        be said as lovers they do feign.

12.Every subject’s duty is the king’s, but every subject’s soul is his        own.

  13. Horses are tied by the head, dogs and bears by the neck,                    monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs: when a man is                  over- lusty at legs, then he wears nether-stocks.

14.    Fie on sinful fantasy! Fie on lust and luxury! Lust is but a                    bloody fire, kindled with unchaste desire.

15.    Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

16.     Men are April when they woo, December when they wed:       maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes                when they are wives.

17.      Memory is the warder of the brain!

18.      What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!          

19.         The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven, upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. It is mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown. His sceptre shows the force of temporal power; the attribute to awe and majesty, wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; but mercy is above this sceptred sway.  It is enthroned in the hearts of kings.  It is an attribute to God himself. An earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice.

 

20. To be, or not to be. That is the question: whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die ---to sleep, no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. It is a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream –ay, there is the rub: for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have of this mortal coil. Must give us pause –there is the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country , from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied over with pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.

                                 

                                  (Concluded)                                                                                     

                                   *********

                                 

G.R.Kanwal

26 May 2026

SHAKESPEARE SAID (PART 1)

 

                                SHAKESPEARE SAID (PART 1)

1.     The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.

2.     Golden lads and girls all must as chimney-sweepers come to dust.

3.     Great cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.

4.     Britain is a world by itself.

5.     Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short.

6.     The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

7.     The eye sees not itself.

8.     Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud.

9.     True nobility is exempt from fear.

10.                         It is sin to flatter.

11.                          Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

12.                         Wise men never sit and wail their thoughts.

13.                         The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.

14.                         Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.

15.                         A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities.

16.                         Lord! We know what we are, bu know not what we may be.

17.                         We cannot but obey the powers above us.

18.                         Give me a heart replete with thankfulness.

19.                         To weep is to make less the depth of grief.

20.                         As swift as thought.

21.                         Unquiet meals make ill digestion.

22.                         No legacy is so rich as honesty.

23.                         Corruption wins not more than honesty.

24.                         Give me a staff of honour for mine age, but not a sceptre to control the world.

25.                         The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.

                                                *******

                        To be continued tomorrow :  26 May 2026 (As Part 2).

 

Note: Shakespeare’s full name was William Shakespeare. He was both a poet and playwright. Born on 23 April 1564 at Stratford-upon-Avon , United Kingdom,  he died there on the same date in 1616.  Rightfully enough,even today he is regarded as world’s greatest dramatist.   

 

G.R.Kanwal

25 May 2026

                                   

 

 

 

 

 

A S0NNET BY SHAKESPEARE

 

                               

                                A S0NNET BY SHAKESPEARE

         

            The English poet-playwright William Shakespeare  (1564-1616 ) wrote 154 sonnets (poems comprising 14 lines each).

 

            Almost  all of them are love poems and celebrate the subjects of  beauty, time, mortality,  longing, pain, hope and despair.

           

            Some of them are about the eternal loveliness of  a ’Fair Youth’ and a mysterious woman  the “Dark Lady”.    

 

                The sonnet given below is about a “Fair Youth.” Its subject is his immortality,  as the poet says :

 

“Thy eternal summer shall not fade.

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade.  

 

                Here is the full text :

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

                                                *******

G.R.Kanwal

24 May 2026