GOD IS GREAT, BUT NOT MAN
One of the best loved poems which
will be quoted below is titled: All Things Bright And Beautiful. It is written
by the Irish poet Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895). The very first quatrain
of the poem says:
All
things bright and beautiful,
All
creatures great and small,
All
things wise and wonderful,
The
Lord God made them all.
But when we look at the world with eyes of the modern man,
we feel extremely depressed. A war is going on; thousands of people have
already died; infrastructure worth billions of rupees has been destroyed;
hatred, not love is the main basis of relationships. James Kirkup’s poem “No
Men are Foreign” is completely forgotten. He had said:
Remember,
no men are strange, no countries foreign,
Beneath
all uniforms, a single body breathes
Like
ours; the land our brothers walk upon
Is
earth like this, in which we all shall lie.
There are thousands of religious
places preaching peace and love but to no universal effect. Most of the
countries believe that their survival depends on deadliest weapons, not on good
neighbourly relationship.
Consequently, man’s productions
cannot be titled : All Things Bright And Beautiful.
Here
are the remaining quatrains of the above-mentioned poem.
Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours
He made their tiny wings.
The purple-headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset, and the morning
That brightens up the sky,
The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one.
The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
We gather every day.
He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty
Who has made all things well.
********
G.R.Kanwal
22 April 2026
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