WHAT I LIVE FOR

 

                WHAT I LIVE FOR

            “What I Live For” is the title of the poem written by George Linnaeus Banks who was a British journalist, editor, poet, playwright, amateur actor, and orator. He was born on 2^nd March 1821 in Birmingham, United Kingdom and died in London, United Kingdom on 3^rd May 1881.

            This  poem has five stanzas of eight lines each. Each stanza begins with words : I live”. For example: the first line of five stanzas is:  live for those who love me. I live to learn their story. I live to hold communion. I live to hold that season. The sixth stanza again begins with the line of the first stanza : I live for those who love me.

              There is a lot which the readers can learn from this poem about the useful purpose of their life in this world.

               Here is the full text:

I live for those who love me,

Whose hearts are kind and true;

For the heaven that smiles above me,

And awaits my spirit too;

For all human ties that bind me,

For the task by God assigned me,

For the bright hopes left behind me,

And the good that I can do.

 

I live to learn their story

Who’ve suffered for my sake;

To emulate their glory,

And follow in their wake ;

Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages,

The noble of all ages,

Whose deeds crown History’s pages,

And time’s great volume make.

 

I live to hold communion

With all that is divine;

To feel there is a union

‘Twixt Nature’s heart and mine;

To profit by affliction,

Reap truth from fields of fiction,

Grow wiser from conviction,

And fulfil each grand design.

 

I live to hail that season,

By gifted minds foretold,

When men shall live by reason,

And not alone by gold;

When man to man united,

And every wrong thing righted,

The whole world shall be lighted

As Eden was of old.

 

I live for those who love me,

For those who know me true;

For the heaven that smiles above me,

And awaits my spirit too;

For the cause that lacks assistance,

For the wrong that needs resistance,

For the future in the distance,

And the good that I can do.

 

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G.R.Kanwal

22^nd August 2025