INTERNATIONAL
WOMAN DAY
On this International Woman Day, my mind goes back to a few prose quotations and some poems
which are related to women and which I had read years ago.
Let me admit that I have always been interested in finding a
perfect definition of man as well as woman but till this day have found
none. The definition of both is
inexhaustible. Man is not always a universal man, nor woman a universal
woman. It is only a little bit interesting to meet a man or a woman of
particular religious or political hue, but not who will satisfy my curiosity of
coming across a man or woman that can take
the place of EVERY MAN or EVERY WOMAN.
Men and women belonging to any particular sect, caste, or
creed, or following any particular way of life or acting according to a
specific philosophy do not attract me whole-heatedly. They please only a
fragment of my infinite being which yearns for encountering a rare superman or
superwoman for whom this ever-evolving beautiful world has been waiting ever
since it was created.
To be frank, the prose
and poetry pieces that follow are just for a momentary mental and emotional
entertainment. All of them are however weighty and unlikely to become outdated
for decades, nay even centuries, to come.
1.
“Wives
are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses; so
as a man may have a quarrel to marry, when he will. But yet he was reputed one
of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry-----A young man not yet, an elder man not at
all.” (Extract from the essay ‘Of
Marriage And Single Life’ written by Francis Bacon,
author, scientist, jurist, b.1561,
d.1626).
2.
“Women
have more good sense than men. They have fewer pretensions, are less implicated
in theories, and judge of objects more from
their immediate and involuntary impressions on the mind, and
therefore more truly and naturally.”
(English critic and author, William Hazlitt: born 1778, died 1830).
3.
“As
the vine which has long twined its
graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it in sunshine , will, when
the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its tendrils,
and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by Providence
that woman who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours,
should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity; winding
herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head and binding up the broken
heart.” (American author, Washington Irving b.1783, d.1859).
4.
“Ah.
Love, let us be true
To one another! For the
world, which seems
To lie before us like a
land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful,
so new,
Hath really neither joy,
nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace,
nor help for pain;
And wee here as on a
darkling plain
Swept with confused
alarms of struggle and flight,
Where
ignorant armies clash by night. “
(Extract from ‘Dover Beach’ a poem written by English poet
and critic, Matthew Arnold, b.1822, d,1888).
5.
Had
but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were
no crime.
We would sit down and
think which way
To walk and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’
side
Shouldst rubies find: I
by the tide
Of Humber would complain.
I would
Love you ten years before
the Flood,
And you should, if you
please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
But at my back I always
hear
Time’s winged chariot
hurrying near;
And yonder all before us
lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more
be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault,
shall sound
My echoing song: then
worms shall try
That long preserved
virginity,
And your quaint honour
turn to dust,
And into ashes all my
lust:
The grave’s a fine and
private place,
But none, I think, do there
embrace.
(Extract from ‘To His Coy
Mistress’ written
by English poet Andrew
Marvell, b.1620, d.1666).
6.
“When
you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire,
take down this book,
And slowly read, and
dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and
of their shadows deep;
How many loved your
moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty
with love false or true;
But one man loved the
pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of
your changing face;
And bending down beside
the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly,
how love fled
And paced upon the
mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
(A poem written by Irish
poet William Butler Yeats – 1865-1939).
And finally this is what
English poet Lord Byron (1788-1824) said: A Man’s love is of man’s life a part;
it is a woman’s whole existence.
8TH MARCH 2020 G.R.KANWAL
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