N O W (A Poem by A. A. Procter)

      

                                     N     O      W

                                             (A Poem by A. A. Procter)      

 

RISE ! For the day is passing

And you lie dreaming on;

The others have buckled their armour,

And forth to the fight are gone:

 

A place in the ranks awaits you,

Each man has some part to play;

The Past and the Future are nothing,

In the face of the stern today.

 

Rise from your dreams of the Future----

Of gaining  some hard-fought field;

Of storming some airy fortress,

Or bidding some giant yield:

 

Your future has deeds of glory,

Of honour (God grant it may!)

But your arm will never be stronger,

Or the need so great as Today.

 

Rise  ! if the past detains you,

Her sunshine and storms forget;

No chains so unworthy to hold you

As those of a vain  regret :

 

Sad or bright, she is lifeless ever,

Cast her phantom arms away,

Nor look back, save to learn the lesson

Of a nobler strife Today.

 

Rise ! for the day is passing:

The sound that you scarcely hear

Is the enemy marching to battle ----

Arie ! for the foe is here !

 

Stay not to sharpen your weapons,

Or the hour will strike at last,

When from dreams of a coming battle,

You may wake to find it past !

                          …………

            The English poet Adelaide Anne Procter was born on 30^th October 1825 at Bedford Square, London. She died on 2^nd February 1864 as a patient of tuberculosis   

 

Her biographers highlight her precocious intelligence on the basis of  her considerable proficiency in French, German, and Italian. She was also very good at drawing and in music. 

Surrounded by a favourable environment, she developed a keen interest in literature and  started composing poetry at a very young age. She was just eighteen when she contributed her poems to the “Book of Beauty”.

Procter  wrote profusely.  Charles Dickens, the novelist,  got her poems in the magazines with which he himself was associated.  

Procter is stated  to have become not only a  famous  poet of Victorian era but also a favourite poet of Queen Victoria.  Her success never went to her head. Her father was also a poet. She is reported to have  remarked: “Papa writes poetry; I write verses.”

 

               Procter was a practical humanist. Her concern  for the sick, the    destitute, homeless, and less fortunate of her own sex was of a very high degree.

 

                  “Now “ is an inspirational poem. Its very first line is a wake-up call. It tells the lethargic soldiers to get up because  others have already buckled their armour ‘and forth to the fight are gone.”

 

The lethargic soldiers are absent from their ranks. They have failed to realise that  each man has some part to play, and moreover it is the present moment which is most important doing one’s duty.

 

Compared with the stern present, the shadowy past and the hazy future are totally insignificant. Dreams about winning great battles in the future are unrealistic  because  dreamers will not be so strong  then as  they are today.    

 

                 The poet advises the readers to get up and disallow the bright and dull times of the past to detain them from going to their fields of action. The past whether it was sad or bright is now lifeless. Its phantom arms  should not be allowed to hold them back.

 

The past  can be  good only to learn the lesson of fighting  a nobler strife    

Today.

                    The poem is a repeated call to the lethargic to become instantly active.  They should not lose even a single moment in sharpening their weapons because any delay will  result in their irreversible defeat and  their dreams about fighting future battles will also end once for all.  

 

                     The title of the poem is “Now” which means only the current moment real.  Dwelling on the past is wasteful and dreaming about the future is sheer stupidity.

                                               

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18^th August 2021                                 G. R. Kanwal