T O Y S

 

T O Y S

My little son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes

And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,   

Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,

I struck him, and dismiss’d

With hard words and unkiss’d.

----His mother, who was patient , being dead.

Then, fearing lost his grief should hinder sleep,

I visited his bed.

But found him slumbering deep,

With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet

From his late sobbing wet.

And I, with moan,

Kissing way his tears, left others of my own;

For, on a table drawn beside his head,

He had put, within his reach,

A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,

A piece of glass abraded by the beach,

And six or seven shells,

A bottle with bluebells,

And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,

To comfort his sad heart.

So when that night I pray’d

To God, I wept, and said:

Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,

Not vexing Thee in death,

And Thou rememberest of what toys

Who made our joys,

How weakly understood

Thy great commanded good,

Then, fatherly not less

Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,

Thou’lt have thy wrath, and say,

‘I will be sorry for their childishness.’

 

            This is a heart-touching poem by the English poet Coventry Patmore (23-7-1823 ---26-11-1896). The title has many connotations. Toys are playthings for children, so are  they for adults.  Only their forms are different. The purpose of toys is to amuse you, entertain you, engage you in some interesting, uplifting activity.  Toys are a means of physical and mental exercise; they nourish  the mind, gratify our emotions, generate a number of thoughts among us. They are symbols of  so many of our possessions and human relations.

The world Itself is a toy for our Lord God who plays with it incessantly. The entire colourful spectacle of the world is  dependent upon  the presence of innumerable toys.  Everybody chooses his  toys according to his age and personal taste.  Children begin their life’s activities with toys and change them as they grow from month to month, year to year. It is foolish for some fathers to think that to collect toys and play with them is a wasteful, undesirable activity. Toys are the wealth of  children, however mean their size, shape or value may be.  They nourish and gratify their senses and help them to love dearly this otherwise dreary world.

 

Here in this poem, we have a motherless child. The mother was patient, the father is desperate. He is also authoritative. He considers his words as  laws which must not be disobeyed. He strikes the playful child, but soon repents, and visits the child’s bed at night and watches there pathetic scenes which turn him from a father to a small child. Metaphorically, he becomes a second son in  the poem. His father is Lord God. He deeply regrets his act of hitting the child, weeps, and adds his own tears to  the tears already dried up on the cheeks of his little son.  Now  the poem has two fathers and two sons. One is the child as a son , the other is the poet as a son.  There is the  poet as a father and God as  a father of all humanity. 

 

Note these lines of the repentant human father:

 

So when that night I pray’d

To God, I wept, and said:

Ah, when at last we lie with tranc’d breath,

Not vexing Thee in death,

And Thou rememberest of what toys

We made our joys.

How weakly we understood

Thy great commanded good,

Then, fatherly not less

Than I whom though has moulded from the clay,

Thou’lt leave They wrath, and say,

‘I will be sorry for their childishness.’

 

            TOYS is a great, eternal  poem  for all fathers.  Remember, all men and women beathing in the world are toys made of clay. They are so brittle, yet so enduring. All of them are dependent upon God’s love and mercy for their earthly existence.

 

Let none of us think of toys as trivial; they are a vital possession of life.  

 

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9^th May 2022                                                   G.R.Kanwal