EXTRACTS FROM TWO ODES

 

EXTRACTS FROM TWO ODES

            Great poetry, even when written in simple language, haunts our mind day after day. It becomes a thing of beauty about which  John Keats (1795-1821) said  is a joy forever.                                                                                                   

            The first extract which is given below is from Ode to the West Wind written by P.B., Shelley (1792-1822):

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,

Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth;

And by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

 

            The second extract comprising a few stanzas is also from P. B. Shelley’s Ode to the Skylark.

            According to a literary critic: Between the “West Wind’ and the ‘Skylark’ the choice for the first place is hard. Each has its points. If the former has greater strength, the latter has greater delicacy and grace.

 

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,

Soothing her love-laden

(Soul in secret hour)

With music sweet as love which overflows her bower.

                                    -----

Teach us, spirit or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine;

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

                                    ----

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not,

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught,

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

                                                ********

       

G.R.Kanwal

26 November 2025.