IN PRAISE OF MOTHERS

1.Children are  what the mothers are; no fondest father’s fondest care can so fashion the infant’s heart , or so shape the life. 4). English writer, Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864).

2.Children, look in those eyes. Listen to that dear voice, notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand! Make much of it while you have that most precious of all good gifts, a loving mother.

Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight your pain. 

In after life you may have friends, fond, dear friends, but never will you have again the in-expressible love and gentleness lavished upon you, which none but a mother bestows.  English author and historian Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59).  

3. The babe at first feeds upon the mother’s bosom, but is always on her heart, American clergy, H.W. Beecher (1813-87).

4.The future of society is in the hands of the mothers. If the world was lost through woman, she alone can save it.   French historian, Louis de Beaufort (died 1795).

5. God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers. Jewish saying.

MOTHER’S DAY                                                          ……….

14^th May 2023                                                                        G.R.Kanwal

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SHAKESPEARE SAID

 

SHAKESPEARE SAID

British poet-playwright was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom, on 23 April 1564 and is believed to have died on 23 April itself in 1616. Known as world’s greatest literary genius, ‘not for an age, but for  all time ’. he had only a smarting of education at Stratford Grammar School. He married , at the age of eighteen,  Anne Hathaway, a young woman of twenty-six.   

                English poet, Matthew Arnold (1822-88) paid his tribute to Shakespeare in the following sonnet:

                Others abide our question . Thou are free.

                We ask and ask ------- Thou smilest and art still,

                Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,

Who  to the stars uncrown his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footstep in the sea,

Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,

Spares but the cloudy border of his base

To the foil’d searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,

Self-schooled, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,

Didst tread on earth unguess’d at.---Better so !

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

               

Today, 23 April 2023 , is Shakespeare’s birthday. A lot of what he said in his numerous plays and sonnets and a few poems is full of eternally quotable lines;  only a handful of them are given here

 for your enlightenment.

 

       As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;

They kill us for their sports. (King Lear).

                                …….

                Cowards die many times before their deaths;

                The valiant never taste of death but once. (Julius Caesar).

 

                                                …….

                The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

                ‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

                The throned monarch better than his crown;

                His sceptre shows the force of  temporal power,

                The attribute to awe and majesty,

                Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings:

                But mercy is above this sceptred sway,

                It is enthroned in the hearts of kings.

                It is an attribute to God himself,

                An earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice.     (Merchant of Venice)

                                ……….

 

The web of our life is of mingled yarn. Good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not : and our crimes would despair if they not cherished by our virtues. (All’s Well That Ends Well).

                                                ……

 

What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! (Hamlet ).

 

                                             …..

                                               

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child. (King Lear) 

 

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23 April 2023                                                                                                                      G.R.Kanwal                                                                                                                        

 

 

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PROPHET MOHAMMAD

 

PROPHET MOHAMMAD

 

Recently I happed to lay my hands on an old book “THE LIFE OF MOHAMMAD” written, by Sir William Muir and printed in 1923 by JOHN GRANT: EDINBURGH .  It was first published in 1861.  The page which most attracted me at the moment created in me the innocent and sacred desire to share it with you in a spirit of gratitude both to the author and the publisher.

The selected part of the intended page reads as follows:

“A remarkable feature was the urbanity and consideration with which Mohammad treated even the most insignificant of his followers. Modesty and kindliness, patience, self-affections and generosity , pervaded his conduct, and riveted the affections of all around him. He disliked to say No. If unable to answer a petitioner in the affirmative, he preferred silence. ‘He was  more bashful’ says A’isha ‘than a veiled virgin; and if anything displeased him , it was rather from his face, than by his words, that we discovered it; he never smote any one but in the service of the Lord, not even a woman or servant.’ He was not  known ever to refuse an invitation to the house even of the meanest, nor to decline a preferred present however small. When seated by a friend, he did not haughtily advance his knees towards him. He possessed the rare faculty of making each individual in a company think that he was the favoured guest. If he met any one rejoicing at success he would seize him eagerly by the hand. With the bereaved and afflicted he sympathised tenderly. Gentle and unbending towards little children, he would not disdain to accost a group of them at play, with the salutation of peace. He shared his food, even in times of scarcity, with others; and was sedulously solicitous for the personal comfort of every one about him. A kindly and benevolent disposition pervades all these illustrations of his character.”

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21^st April 2023                                                                                                    G.R.Kanwal     

THE NOBLE NATURE

 

 

THE  NOBLE  NATURE

“The Noble Nature” is a garden poem written by the English playwright and poet Ben Jonson who was born at Westminster on 11 June 1572 and died there on 16 August 1637.  He was a contemporary of Shakespeare (1564-1616) and  one of his few admirers at that time.

Though nearly 400 years have passed since the poem was written, its freshness has not faded  and the eternal message which  it conveys has remained undiminished.  

The central idea of the poem is about short and long life. Which of the two is better and on what basis? Jonson says:

“It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be;

Or standing like an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald and seer:”

 

According to him as quality in short life is better than mere magnitude in long life:

                        “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.”

 

Jonson concludes the poem with a couplet with his aesthetic viewpoint about life. It

 reads as follows:

                  “In small proportions we just beauties see;

                  And in short measures life may perfect be.”

                                   

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6^th April 2023                                                                  G. R. Kanwal                                                                                                                                     

 

THE BUILDERS : A POEM BY H.W. LONGFELLOW

 

THE BUILDERS : A POEM BY H.W. LONGFELLOW

‘THE BUILDERS’ is one of the best-loved poems of  the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27.2.1807 – 24.3.1882).  By the builders, he means nation-builders and includes in his list everybody, without any condition. In another poem with a similar theme , he says it is not wealth that makes a nation great and strong but those loyal people who stand firm and suffer long for her  truth and honour.

                 The poem which means that everybody, whatever be his or her assets has some contribution to make to the task of nation-building reads  as follows:

            THE BUILDERS

All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme.

 

Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place its best;

And what seems but idle show

Strengthens and supports the rest.

 

Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between;

Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen.

 

In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care

Each minute and unseen part;

For the Gods see everywhere.

 

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen;

Make the hose, where Gods may dwell,

Beautiful, entire, and clean.

 

Rise our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these walls of Tie,

Broken stairways, where the feet

Stumble as they seek to climb.

 

Build today, then, strong and sure,

With a firm and ample base;

And ascending and secure

Shall tomorrow find its place.

 

Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye

Sees the world as one vast plain,

And one boundless reach of sky,

 

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5^th April 2023                                                                                                                 G.R.Kanwal

 

AMONG MY FAVOURITE POEMS

 AMONG MY FAVOURITE POEMS

AMONG MY FAVOURITE POEMS

The title of the poem is The glories of our blood and state. It is written by James Shirley (1596-1666), a famous dramatist and poet of his times. I first read it more than half a century ago as a class X student.  It impressed me a lot even  then with a different title Death the Leveller.

The poem which reads as follows is ‘ on the power of good deeds to survive the strangle hold of death whose ‘dismal march tramples down human pride’ and whose vividly personified picture  appears as the ultimate conqueror , having a realm  where perfect equality prevails.  

            The glories of our blood and state

            Are shadows, not substantial things;

            There is no armour against Fate;

            Death lays his icy hand on kings:

            Sceptre and crown

            Must tumble down,

            And in the dust be equal made

             With the poor crooked scythe and spade

 

            Some men with swords may reap the field,

            And plant fresh laurels where they kill ;

            But their strong nerves at last must yield ;

            They tame but one another still.

            Early or late,

            They stoop to fate,

            And must give up their murmuring breath,

            When they, pale captives, creep to death

 

The garlands wither on your brow,

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;

Upon Death’s purple altar now

See where the victor-victim bleed;

Your heads must come

To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

 

According to the British critic Marjorie Boulton  (1824-2017) , though didactic in tone, and on a solemn subject, the poem is not dull and flat. It is a true lyric, for it comes from a play in which it was  sung.     

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28^th March 2023                                              G. R. Kanwal

  

 

HAPPIEST SEASON OF LIFE

 

            HAPPIEST SEASON OF LIFE

On this ‘International Day of Happiness’ (20^th March), let me share with you the following quotation which I came across a long time ago. It is attributed to an aged man who did not disclose his name and to the question , “Which is the happiest season of life”, he replied :

 

“When spring comes, and in the soft air the buds are breaking on the trees, and they are  covered with blossoms.  I think, how beautiful is spring ! And when the summer comes, and covers the trees with its heavy foliage, and singing birds are among the branches, I think, how beautiful is summer ! When autumn loads them with golden fruit, and their leaves bear the  gorgeous tint of frost, I think, how beautiful is autumn ! And when it is sere winter, and there is neither foliage nor fruit , then I look up through the leafless branches, as I never could until now, and see the stars shine.”

 

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20^th March 2023                                                                                        G.R.Kanwal