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 !”
*************
20th April 2022 G. R. KANWAL
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