THIS TOO SHALL PASS AWAY

                            THIS TOO SHALL PASS AWAY     

              “This Too Shall Pass Away” is the title of a poem written by an American poetess Lanta Wilson Smith (1856-1939).

It is indeed one of those great poems of faith and immortality which find a permanent place in world literature.  It has been quoted repeatedly ever since it was first recited by its author.  Even today it is on the lips of quite a large number of people who are thinking or writing about the dreadful Corona virus and feel low-spirited. In this sense, it is a morale booster.  

            The core idea of the poem is that nothing is permanent in this world.  Everything has its limited span of life. Nothing stays, everything passes away.  Change is the law of nature and will remain so for aeons to come.  Human life itself is in flux.   It passes through many stages and many versions from infancy to old age.  All the discoveries and inventions of mankind have been a wonder of the hour. Nothing has emerged here to stay forever. It appears for a while, shows its inner and outer reality, its meaning and purpose, as also cause and effect and soon passes into history. The fate of Corona is no different. It too will have its short stay and then pass away. So then why to worry? But also why not to face it with the invincible spirit of man and make preparation to battle with another virus waiting to come.  All viruses threaten and threaten human and animal life and then disappear leaving behind a sad memory, a memory which man uses to re-strengthen himself for another trial of his overpowering faculties in this phenomenal world.   

                        English writer Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) puts the above-mentioned idea in these beautiful words: “Today is not yesterday. We ourselves change. How then, can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same. Change, indeed, is painful, yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope. “

                        Don’t we see that people who are gloomy today become cheerful tomorrow, and the defeat of an army at a particular moment changes into victory  shortly after?

According to American author Washington Irving (1783-1859), the law of change is very strong. “History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust.”

Finally here is Smith’s poem:

WHEN some great sorrow, like a mighty river,

Flows through your life with peace-destroying power,

And dearest things are swept from sight forever,

Say to your heart each trying hour:

“This, too, shall pass away.”

  

When ceaseless toil has hushed your song of gladness,

And you have grown almost too tired to pray,

Let this truth banish from your heart its sadness,

And ease the burdens of each trying day:

“This, too, shall pass away.”

When fortune smiles, and, full of mirth and pleasure,

The days are flitting by without a care,

Lest you should rest with only earthly treasure,

Let these few words their fullest import bear:

“This, too, shall pass away.”   

When earnest labor brings you fame and glory,

And all earth’s noblest ones upon you smile,

 Remember that life’s longest, grandest story

Fills but a moment in earth’s little while:

“This, too, shall pass away.”

18^th April 2020                                           G. R. KANWAL