THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN

 

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN 

Thomas Hardy (English novelist : 1840-1928) said happiness is an occasional episode in the general drama of pain. Unlike Shakespeare (1564-1616), he did not believe character is fate, He found that human happiness is undeservedly spoiled by chance and accident.  He is thus a pessimistic novelist.  But Shakespeare is also not  optimistic throughout. Look at the following poem taken from his play As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7. It is addressed by a philosophic character Jaques to the Duke S..

                    The poem reads as follows:

                         “All the world’s a stage,

And all men and women merely players:

They have their exit and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many part,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms:

Then the whining school-boy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick to quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then, the justice,

In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws, and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,

His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide

For the shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And wishes in his sound.  Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.:

 

            There is neither a happy beginning with ‘the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms ‘and ‘ the whining school-boy…creeping like snail unwillingly to school’ nor a happy ending showing man in his ‘second childishness…sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’   

            Jaques poem is preceded by Duke S’s view on unhappiness:

            “Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy.

            This wide and universal theatre

            Presents more woeful pageants than the scene

            Wherein we play in.”

 

            Philosophically speaking, life is a tale of suffering. As for Shakespeare’s philosophy, it can be rightly imagined that as he grew older, he became less optimistic about mankind.    

                       

            According to German scholar Friedrich Zimmermann, bearing the pseudonym Subhadra Bhikshu (1852-1917): “To be born is to suffer: to grow old is to suffer: to die is to suffer: to be tied to what is not loved is to suffer.  In short, all the results of individuality , of separate self-hood, necessarily involve pain or suffering. “

 

            In Indian philosophy, it is largely  Buddhism which deals with human pain and suffering.  “Birth is painful; decay is painful; disease is painful; union with the unpleasant is painful; separation from the pleasant  is painful.” The dualist Samkhya philosophy which deals with both  consciousness and matter also recognises three kinds of human suffering. (i) suffering  due to bodily diseases and mental ailments; (ii) suffering due to other men and animals; (iii) suffering due to supernatural agencies.

 

            It is an optimistic  feature that both Buddhism and Samkhya philosophy have not only recognised the causes of human suffering but have  also discovered and preached the way which leads to the destruction of sorrow. In this respect, Buddha’s eightfold formula comprising Right views; right aspirations; right speech; right behaviour; right livelihood; right effort; right thoughts and right contemplation is the most popular and the most effective.

            To conclude , Buddha’s  cumulative  suggestion  about liberation from sorrow:   

Let go all the lusts and desires of egotism. Don’t cling to covetousness and sensuality inherited from former existence. Surender the grasping disposition of selfishness so as to attain perfect peace, goodness, and wisdom. By doing so you will discover the path of salvation and walk on it steadily.   

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30 April 2022                                                               G.R.KANWAL                                       

           

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE

English poet-dramatist William Shakespeare  was born on 23^rd April 1564. He died on the same date, 23^rd April, in 1616. He was a peerless genius.  Most of the literary judgements regard  him as  not only a great poet and dramatist of England but of the whole world. He is rightly claimed to be not of any one age or country, but of all the ages and of all the countries. He is both universal and eternal. The whole world has adopted him not merely as a supreme poet-philosopher but translated as well most of his works into their native languages.

Shakespeare’s literary output comprises 39 plays, 154 sonnets and three long poems. In all of them, he has  presented the eternal truths of the human heart.

Long back in 1890, Anna Buckland,  wrote in The Story of English Literature  (Cassell & Company Limited, London)  a play of Shakespeare’s is so full and many-sided that we may read it at different times in our lives and in different moods, again and again, and still find it as fresh as ever. There is always the bright, charming story, fascinating to a child; there is the true picture of life, full of interest to all healthy minds at all times; there is the fine delineation of character and  the sound expression of feeling through which we learn to understand better both ourselves  and others;  there is  the genial spirit of love and the lesson of moral truth to guide us in action, the philosophic thought which helps us to understand why things are as  they are, the clear sight which sees with hope the end to which  things are working, and above all  the faith in God which strengthens our own. And on the surface of the play lie the neat little sayings in which great truths are so wrapped that we can use them as household words, while in the text itself the grammarian and the student of language find a field in which they may work again and again.

To  justify all that has been said above , here are a few most quotable examples  from Shakespeare’s plays and a  sonnet:

“What a piece of work is 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!

Hamlet, Act 2, Sc.2.

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 prov’d,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.  

                                                                                                            Sonnet CXIX

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.

                                                                                                            Macbeth, Act 5, Sc.3

                                               

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,

Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;

It blesseth him  that gives and him that takes:

‘T is the 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 kinds;

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.

                                                                                    Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Sc.1

And finally, a short stanza on human ingratitude:

 

Blow, blow,  thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man’s ingratitude.

Thy tooth is not  so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

                                                                                    As You Like It, Act 2, Sc.7.”

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23 April 2022                                                               G.R.KANWAL                                                                                                                                      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BEAUTIFUL THINGS

 

BEAUTIFUL THINGS

Beauty is defined as handsomeness, attractiveness, loveliness, charm, glamour, etc., and literally what is beautiful is lovely, attractive, good-looking, pleasing, delightful, winsome, graceful, elegant, etc.  All  these definitions pertain to the appearance of their possessors. However, lovely  appearance alone is not enough to call a woman beautiful.  She must be having some virtues to deserve this title.  Action rather than appearance should be the basis of calling a thing or a person to be beautiful. The point is that beauty without virtuous actions is sham. It has to be actively good to claim the title of beautiful.

 

The poem that follows bears the title ‘BEAUTIFUL THINGS’.  It is the creation of American poetess Ellen Palmer Allerton (1835-1893). She is best remembered for this poem and really deserves to be so.  The major part of the poem describes how human organs like faces, eyes, lips, hands, feet and shoulders can be meritoriously  called beautiful.

 

According to her:

 

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 hearth fires glow,

Beautiful, thoughts that burn below.

 

 Beautiful lips are those whose words

Leap from  the heart like songs of birds,

Yet whose utterance prudent girds.

 

Beautiful hands are those that do

Work that is honest and brave and 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 lives 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!

 

            NOTE AND REMEMBER

 Beautiful hands are those that do

Work  that is honest and brave and true

 To conclude, beauty  alone cannot be called the summum bonum of life. It has to be blended with two other qualities i.e.  goodness and truth to become the complete picture  that has been conceived and presented  by so many saints and seers of the world.

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22 April 2022                                                                           G.R.KANWAL  

A CHILD”S HOME

 

                A   CHILD”S   HOME

‘Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home;

A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,

Which, seek through  the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere.

Home, home, sweet, sweet home !

 

An exile from home, splendour dazzles in vain;

Oh, give me my lowly  thatched cottage again !

The birds singing gaily, that came at  my call –

Give me them --- and the peace of mind, dearer than all.

Home, home, sweet, sweet home !

There’s no place like home, oh, there’s no place like home !

 

            The lings given above are part of a song “HOME, SWEEET HOME” written by the American poet John Howard Payne (1791-1852). Composed in 1822 this song became popular all over the world and is even today one of the best songs on the theme of ‘Home And Childhood’.

 

            Imagine the fate of a child who has to lose his home because of some  natural calamity, national havoc or international disaster like war.  He has to migrate with his parents with an extremely heavy heart, leaving behind, what the poet says: “There’s no place like home, oh,  there’s no place like home !”. He rejects a splendid place in exile and cries : “Oh, give me my lowly  thatched cottage again ! The birds singing gaily,  that came at my call.” His old thatched cottage was a paradise and the birds singing gaily were far better than the high-tech  professional singers of a modern city.

 

            Shouldn’t the present-day rulers who destroy sweet homes of numberless children introspect and give up their devilish game of war in the name of Merciful God !  

 

            In the end, two more lines from the above-quoted song:

 

“How sweet ‘tis to sit ‘neath a fond father’s smile,

And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile !”

 

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20^th April 2022                                                G. R. KANWAL

                                                                

 

LIFE WITHOUT LEISURE

 

LIFE WITHOUT LEISURE

To know what is life without leisure, we have to read in full the following poem by the English poet W.H.Davies  (1871-1940 ).

                                    LEISURE

WHAT is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs,

And stare as long as sheep and cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at  night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich  that smile her eyes began?

A poor life  this, if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

 

This  poem refers to the over-busy life of a modern man in towns and cities where he is terribly cut off from natural beauty. Work without leisure has become his unavoidable daily  pattern. He has no interest in things of beauty that are joys for ever. For months he misses the sunrise and the moonlight because he has become a slave to endless work that makes him materially rich but aesthetically and spiritually poor.    

 

 

According to James Reeves Davies  spent his early years as a tram In America and England. He remained poor all his life, and preserved a kind of primal innocence, by which his poetry survives. His abundant brief and simple lyrics were for many years his only source of income, and he had a certain knowing instinct for what the public wanted. Nevertheless,  he was not as simple as his readers liked to think him, and as the anthologists liked to make him out.  (A Short History of English Poetry, Mercury Books, London, 1961).

 

 

Another English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) had a similar complaint to make :

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hears away, a sordid boon !

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

The winds that will be howling at all hours

And are up-gather’d now like sleeping flowers,

For this, for everything , we are out of tune;

It moves us not.

 

 

Nature moves us not is the problem. We have to , once again, allow Nature to move us towards that simple and leisurely life which was the bedrock all  of our health and happiness.

            “Leisure” by W.H.Davies is one of the best poems of country delights. It is also the most favourite poem for anthologists.

 

            Finally, it needs be said that  early twentieth century Georgian poets like Davies, turned away from the unsympathetic atmosphere of industrial England to seek peace in the homely charms of English country life. “Leisure” is a symbolic expression of that life.

 

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19^th April 2022                                                         G. R. KANWAL    

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN PRAISE OF DOGS

 

IN PRAISE OF DOGS

Dogs are everywhere, yet there are very few poems written about them.  Rarely does a poet think of writing about their  relationship with human beings. 

You find dogs in homes as well as in streets.  Those in homes enjoy the love and protection of their masters. They are like valued members of the family.

Street dogs are less fortunate.  They don’t get even two meals a day with any kind of regularity.  Moreover, unlike inhouse pets, they are exposed to all sorts of  insults and weather conditions. I have found them sheltering themselves under the cars parked in  the streets.  These dogs become mad and become a serious danger to the street dwellers  and all sorts of visitors.  Their bite, if untreated, can become fatal. 

In spite of some painful facts dogs are loved, admired, and sought after.  They are welcomed as lovely pets in innumerable households. Their masters give them unbroken love.  Indeed, they become inseparable companions. Even children treat them as playmates and good caretakers.   

It is dogs who first greet the guests and other visitors with their loud and frightful barks.

The fact that dogs are uniquely faithful is undeniable. There are legends according to which they have sacrificed their lives for their masters.

It is commonplace to say that they dogs the best companions, best guards and best sources of emotional outlet.   

            The poem that follows bears the title: ‘I THINK I KNOW NO FINER THINGS THAN DOGS’. It is a light verse written by the English poet  Hally Carrington Brent born in 1879. She died at the age of 89 and is widely known for her satires and light verse. The poem cited here is one of her several poems on dogs.

“Through prejudice perhaps my mind befogs,

I  think I know no finer things than dogs:

The young ones, they of gay and bounding hearts,

Who lure us in their games to take a part,

Who with mock tragedy their antics cloak

And, from their wild eyes’ tail, admit the joke;

The old ones, with their wistful, fading eyes,

They who desire no further paradise

Than the warm comfort of a smile and  hand,

Who tune their moods to ours and understand

Each word and gesture;  they who lie and wait

To welcome us ---- with no rebuke  if late.

Sublime the love they bear; but ask to live

Close to our feet, unrecompensed to give;

Beside which many men seem very logs ----

I think I know no finer things than dogs.

 

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15^th April 2022                                                                        G.R.KANWAL

 

 

 

 

             

 

 

TWO POETS AND THEIR POETRY

 

TWO POETS AND THEIR POETRY

             By two poets I mean William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). Both were English romantics of the first phase. They were  also conspicuous  for their theory of poetic language which was marked by true simplicity and directness. Wordsworth held  : “There is no difference between the language of prose and the language of poetry. “ Coleridge wrote his own definition of a poet.

“What is a poet? To whom does he address himself? And what language is to be     expected from him? He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with

more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature and a more comprehensive soul than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.“

 

The extracts that follow from a few poems of these poets are true to the spirit of the final lines of the definition given  in the above extract.     

 

            “There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,

            The earth, and every common sight,

                      To me did seem

                      Apparelled in celestial light,

            The glory and the freshness of a dream.

            It is not now as it hath been of yore;---

                       Turn whereso’er I may.

                        By night or day.

            The things which I have seen  now can see no more.

                                                                                                (William Wordsworth)

 

            But now ill tidings bow me down to earth,

            Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth ---

            But oh ! Each visitation

            Suspends what nature gave at my birth,

            My shaping spirit of imagination !

                                    …….

            To be beloved is all I need,

            And whom I love, I love indeed.

                                    ……

            Alone, alone, all, all alone,

            Alone on a wide, wide sea !

            And never a saint took pity on

            My soul in agony-

O Sara ! we receive but what we give,

            And in our life alone does nature live.

                                    ………        (S. T. Coleridge)

 

Both Wordsworth and Coleridge regarded direct contact  with nature as a necessary condition of mental and spiritual health.

 

 Books ! ‘tis a dull and endless strife :

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music ! on my life,

There’s more of wisdom in it.

 

And hark ! how blithe the throstle sings !

He too is no mean preacher !

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

                        ……

              Let Nature be your teacher is also my message for the readers of this short note on ‘Two Poets And Their Poetry.’

 

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13^th April 2022                                                                        G.R.KANWAL

FREEDOM : A POEM BY J.R.LOWELL

    

 

                             FREEDOM : A POEM BY J.R.LOWELL

“Freedom” is a short but significant poem written by the American romantic poet James Russell Lowell(22.2.1819-12.8.1891).

             This poet had taken his degree from the Harvard Law School in 1840. During his relatively long professional period, he was a poet, teacher, critic, editor and diplomat.

His family life was rather unfortunate. By 1853, he had four children three of whom died. His wife also passed away. These events depressed him extremely, so much so that he could not reignite his poetic fires and turned to prose.

            Lowell wrote a lot during  his lifetime and earned great reputation. But regrettably enough today he is considered as one of the  minor poets in American literature.

As a poet and editor of several magazines, his main interest was in anti-slavery subjects. “Freedom” is one of those poems where he defines slaves and freemen in his own way.

The poem ‘FREEDOM”  reads as follows:  

“THEY are slaves who fear to speak

For the fallen and the weak ;

They are slaves who will not choose

Hatred, scoffing, and abuse ;

Rather in silence shrink

From the truth they needs must think ;

They are slaves who dare not be

In the right with two or three.”

 

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7^th April 2022                                                 G.R.KANWAL

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

RISE ! FOR THE DAY IS PASSING

 

RISE ! FOR THE DAY IS PASSING

“Rise! for the day Is passing” is the first line of the poem  ‘NOW’ written by the English poet Adelaide Anne Proctor. She was a precocious child who began to compose significant poems as a teenager,  and got them  published in popular journals.  

Unfortunately, she fell a prey to tuberculosis, then an incurable disease which spread through air. Thus, her life span shrank from 30^th October 1825 to 2^nd February 1864.

‘NOW’ is one of her best poems.  It is motivational in nature  and has an eternal counsel for every human being.  The poet talks about the comparative importance of time  - the Present, the  Past and the Future. In her view, the present moment alone is the most reliable one for any effective  action. “The Past and Future are nothing /In the face of the stern Today.”  

She exhorts  the readers to rise from their dreams of the future, of gaining some hard-fought field, or storming some airy fortress or bidding some giant yield. Their future has deeds of glory and of honour (God grant it may!), but their  arm will never be stronger, or the need so great as today.

The poet compares the world to a battlefield where everyone has a fixed role to play.  The one who reaches there earlier than others wins the battle and occupies the field.    

The message of the poet for shedding lethargy , avoiding vain memories of the past and refraining  from fantasies about the future is everlasting.  It is not a message for any particular person or for any particular day, it is  one for whole humanity and for all times to come.

The full text of the poem reads as follows:

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 role to play;

The Past and 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,

Of bidding some giant yield;

Your Future has deeds of glory,

Of honour (God rant it may!)

But your arm will never be stronger,

Or the need so great as Today.

 

Rise! if the Past detains you,

Her sunshine an 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 hat you scarcely hear

Is the enemy marching to battle: -

Arise  for the foe is here!

Stay not to sharpen your weapons,

Or the hour will strike at last.

 

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5^th April 2022                                          G. R. KANWAL