SMALL THINGS

 

SMALL THINGS

A sense of an earnest will

To help the lowly living

And a terrible heart-thrill,

If you have no power of giving,

An arm of aid to the weak

A friendly hand to the friendless ;

Kind words, so short to speak,

But whose echo is endless;

The world is wide,---these things are small,

They may be nothing----but they may be all.

 

            This short poem with a big idea is by an English poet Baron Richard Monckton Milnes Houghton(1809—1885). He was both a poet and a politician. His forte was social justice , a fight for the underprivileged. According to him ‘an arm of aid to the weak, a friendly hand to the friendless and kind words to the depressed are not small things.’ They are small for the givers but big for the receivers. They give hope and courage to those who need them.  For the givers these small things may be nothing but for those who need them at a particular time , they may be not merely  big but all.

                                                            *******

G. R. Kanwal

11^th October 2023