WHAT MAKES LIFE PERFECT?
Life is made perfect not by the large
number of years, but by its worthy deeds which may be accomplished even in a
brief period.
In his poem The Perfect Life, the English poet and playwright Ben Jonson
(1572-1837) says: Perfection does not consist in bulk. The highest beauty in
nature is not seen in a tall oak tree, standing for three hundred years, but in
a lily which blossoms and dies in a day.
Look
at these lines taken from his poem:
It is not growing like a tree /In
bulk, doth make man better be.
A lily of a day/Is fairer far in
May/Although it fall and die that night--/It was the plant and flower of
Light./In small proportions we just beauties see;/And in short measures life
may perfect be.
English romantic poets John Keats
(1795-1821), Lord Byron (1788-1824) and P.B.Shelley (1792-1822) lived a short
but perfect life. They are immortal in English literature. Keats said: A thing
of beauty is a joy for ever. Byron’s famous quote is: I love not man the less,
but Nature more. And see this great quote by P.B.Shelley: We look before and
after/And pine for what is not/Our sincerest laughter/With some pain is
fraught.
Here
is another poet talking about brief but perfect life. He is Robert Herrick (1591-1674).
The following three stanzas are taken from his most popular poem To Blossoms:
Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,/Why
do ye fall so fast?/Your date is not so past,/But you may stay yet here a-while,/To
blush and gently smile;/And go at last.
What, were ye born to be/An hour or
half’s delight,/And so bid good-night?/’Twas pity Nature brought ye forth,/Merely to show
your worth./And lose you quite.
But you are lovely leaves, where
we/May read how soon things have/Their end, though ne’er so brave:/And after
they have shown their pride,/Like you a-while;---they glide/Into the grave.
*******
PUNCHLINE: The life of a mosquito is short but very active.
*******
G.R.Kanwal
12 June 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment