BEAUTIFUL THINGS

BEAUTIFUL THINGS

‘Beautiful Things’ is a poem written by American poet Ellen P. Allerton who was born on 17^th October 1835 and passed away on 31^st August 1893. She has her own definition of beauty which does not lie in superficial outer appearances but deeply inward realities. 

According to many enlightened seers, nothing is ugly in this world.  Ugliness and beauty are the two sides of the same coin. God is the creator of all that exists in this world.  How can we blame Him for creating ugliness?

Let us recall the words of the Ancient Mariner in the “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” written by the English poet  S.T.Coleridge (1772-1834). This hero of the poem finds relief from his curse only by appreciating the beauty of the proverbial poisonous creatures like snakes: He says:

Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watch’d the water snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, and when they rear’d, the elfish light fell off in hoary flakes.  Within the shadow of the ship I watch’d their rich attire; blue, glossy green, and velvet black, they coil’d and swam; and every track, was a flash of golden fire.  O happy living things! No tongue their beauty might declare : a spring of love gush’d from my heart, and I blessed them unaware: sure my kind saint took pity on me, and I bless’d them unaware.

In her poem ‘BEAUTIFUL THINGS’ Ellen P.Allerton tells the readers which faces, eyes, lips, hands, feet, shoulders, lives, twilight and graves are really beautiful.  What are their characteristics in brief. The whole poem which is one of the most favourite poems of  the lovers of English poetry runs as follows:      

“BEAUTIFUL faces are those that wear---

It matters little if dark or fair---

Whole-souled honesty printed there.

Beautiful eyes are those that show,

Like crystal panes where hearthfires glow,

Beautiful  thoughts burn below.

Beautiful lips are those whose words

Leap from the heart like songs of birds,

Yet whose utterance prudence girds.

Beautiful hands are those that do

Work that is hones t and brave true,

Moment by moment the long day through.

Beautiful feet are those that go

On kindly ministries to and fro,

Down lowliest ways, if God wills it so.

Beautiful shoulders are those that bear

Ceaseless burdens of homely care

With patient grace and daily prayer.

Beautiful eyes are those that bless

Silent rivers of happiness,

Whose hidden fountains but few may guess.

Beautiful twilight at set of sun,

Beautiful goal with race well won,

Beautiful rest with work well done.

Beautiful graves where grasses creep,

Where brown leaves fall, where drifts lie deep

Over worn-out hands ----oh! Beautiful sleep!”

26^th February 2020               G.R.KANWAL

The CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE

The CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE

‘The Character of a Happy Life’ is an all-time relevant poem written by Sir Henry

Wotton (1568-1639). An English diplomat, he was Secretary to the Earl of Essex (1595). His poetical and other writings are known as “Reliquiae Wottonianae”. His poem which is reproduced below is taken from this collection.

                       A happy life is not easy to define. However, a few quotations on happiness will be useful in understanding and enjoying Henry Wotton’s poem. According to the English poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) happiness can be built only on virtue, and must of necessity have truth for its foundation. Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelium Antonius (121-80) thinks no man is happy who does not think himself so.  French Mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1822-1891) holds that happiness is neither within us only, or without us; it is the union of ourselves with God. And finally, English clergy Spurgeon Charles Haddon (1834-92) believes that happiness consists in being perfectly satisfied with what we have got and with what we haven’t got. Moreover, it is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Now have a look at Wotton’s poem:

“HOW happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another’s will;

Whose armour is his honest thought.

And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are;

Whose soul is still prepared for death,

Untied unto the world by care

Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise;

Nor vice; who never understood

How deepest wounds are given by praise;

Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;

Whose conscience is his strong retreat;

Whose state can neither flatters feed,

Nor ruin make oppressors great;

Who God doth late and early pray

More of His grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a religious book or friend;

------This man is freed from servile bands

Of hope to rise or fear to fall:

Lord of himself, though not of lands,

And having nothing, yet hath all.”

20^th February 2020                            G. R. KANWAL

TWO LOVE SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE

          TWO LOVE SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE

Let us on this Valentine ’s Day have a look at two most inspiring love sonnets of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), who was a poet and dramatist not only of England but of the whole world.  Though his writings were for his own times, they happened to become the immortal treasure of all ages to come.   He had the divine faculty of representing the thoughts and feelings of entire humanity. This makes him relevant to every country and every period of world’s history.   

Here are the two sonnets:

                        (1)

LET me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempest and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s 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: ---

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.  

                       

(2)

TO me, fair friend, you never can be old;

For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

Such seems your beauty still. Three Winters cold

Have from the forests shook three Summers’ pride;

Three beauteous Springs to yellow Autumn turn’d

In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green,

Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:

Ere you were born was beauty’s Summer dead.

                                    ---------------

14^th February 2020                               G. R. KANWAL

THE STORY OF AN OPTIMIST

THE STORY OF AN OPTIMIST

Optimists do not look at the dark side of things. They are always hopeful.  They believe that every cloud has a silver lining. As such, they face their miseries and sorrows without losing a fast grip on their life.

            Here is the life-story of an American optimist Molly Fancher. She died at the age of 67 after dragging out an existence of long suffering on a sickbed.  She had a happy and healthy girlhood. It was in May 1864 when was just in her teens that she was thrown and badly hurt while riding a horse. A year later before she had fully recovered, she was seriously injured in an accident which most rapidly caused the loss of speech, sight and hearing. Not only this, she also became paralysed, and though she gradually recovered the ability to speak, to see, and to hear, some impact of paralysis continued to persist. In fact, up to the day she breathed her last she was almost helplessly bedridden.         

            The only bright side of her sickness was that her mind remained clear, and she had the use of her hands. Quite admirably, her biographers wrote that despite here terrible burden of suffering, she contrived to get through life cheerfully. To a newspaper reporter who visited her at her modest Brooklyn home, she said:

            “Yes, I am a little, old woman now. I have had my cross to bear. But there are others, and their crosses are heavier than mine.  I am not so badly off as some. Think of the poor people who are hungry, and without work. Why not pity them?”

            Bedridden and paralysed though she was, Molly Fancher knew how to look at life philosophically.

If a brave, cheerful attitude was possible to her, after half a century of unceasing invalidism, surely such an attitude is possible to all of us, no matter what our present circumstances may be.

            Molly Fancher discovered that pessimism was no cure for trouble and gloominess only made bad matters worse. During her period of blindness, deafness and dumbness, she did not allow worry and despair to overwhelm her. Consequently, her cheerfulness did not only enable her to endure the long years of illness, it became a positive factor in keeping her alive.

            She was always cheerful and never became idle. She continued to work. Her biographer recorded that lying on her bed of sickness, able to use only her hands, she had written thousands of letters, and done a vast amount of knitting, embroidery, and wax-work. Thus she kept her mind occupied, and by so doing kept herself from falling a victim to “in-growing thoughts. “  Not to brood, but to keep busy, that was Molly Fancher’s sickroom philosophy -------the philosophy of a wise woman.

5^th February 2020                                                  G. R. KANWAL    

What IS DHARMA?

                 What  IS  DHARMA?

Most of the religious practitioners believe that Dharma, like Karma, is one of the most complex conceptions that exists in Hinduism.  It has been used to mean duty, righteousness, law, order, right rules of conduct, justice, morality, religion and truth. In Sanskrit,  dhr--- means to hold, to establish, to formulate, to manifest, to sustain , to unite, etc. According to V.V. Merchant a great Sanskrit scholar and interpreter of Hinduism, Dharmas, which is the plural of Dharma, stands for the ordained or natural duties of life—whether religious, ethical, social, etc. As for Ma. this particle of the word Dharma refers to the universe, the cosmic mother principle which contains, supports, nurtures, nourishes and sustains the universe. 

            Indian seer Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) describes the Indian conception of Dharma as not merely the good, the right, morality and justice and ethics, but the whole government of all relations of man with other beings, with Nature and God.  Dharma, according to him, is both that which we hold to and that which holds together our inner and outer activities, and in this primary sense, it connotes a fundamental law of our nature which secretly conditions all our activities. Dharma, he adds, is all that helps us to grow into the divine purity, largeness, light, freedom, power, strength, joy, love, good, unity and beauty.

            Sri Aurobindo believes that there is no ethical idea which the word Dharma has not stressed. Truth, honour, loyalty, fidelity, courage, chastity, love, long-suffering, self-sacrifice, harmlessness, forgiveness, compassion, benevolence, beneficence are all the common themes of Dharma.

             Gandhiji (1869-1948) believed that according to the scriptures that is Dharma which is enjoined by the holy books, followed by the sages, interpreted by the learned and which appeals to the heart. The first three conditions must be fulfilled before the fourth comes into operation. Above all, Gandhiji wanted Dharma to be practiced in everyday life.  He did not share the view that the end of Dharma is to acquire merit after death.  He observed: “If it has no practical use in this life, it has none for me in the next. “

4^th February 2020                                                      G. R. KANWAL